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in 1621, the buildings of New Montclair Castle had almost completely become
dilapidated. Towards the end of the Second World War, the castle got under
artillery fire which caused further damage..
When in 1991 the restoration of the castle began, the still existing parts of the building were in a very poor condition. So the main target was the conservation of the existing remains. A complete reconstruction was not wanted, as this could only show one single moment of the castle's varied history.
The ruin of Montclair Castle in 1850
Stair tower
herefore,
the concept was to fortify the remains of the ancient walls and save
them from further dilapidation. All new buildings or the inevitable
additions to the old ones should be clearly discernible by their modern
style.
The round towers had originally walls which were more than 3 m thick;
but at the beginning of the restoration, they were completely hollow.
The material used for their construction had been large-size ashlars
of sandstone. Some of these could still be found around the building.
They were used for the reconstruction of the outer walls; for those
parts of the walls which had to be completely rebuilt, big plain square
stone blocks were taken.
odern
materials were also used on purpose whenever there was not enough known
about the original state of a building to do a correct reconstruction.
For example, the stone stairs in the upper part of the stair tower beside
the south-eastern round tower were extended by a spiral staircase made
of steel. This was done because here the wall showed no visible traces
of stairs leading further up. So everything that was added, like bridges,
footbridges, railings, windows, grilles and modern extensions, was also
made of modern materials.
We also held on to the original ways to walk through the castle. The ascent to the platforms of the towers und the bridge connecting them were kept in their original way.
All modifications were done in a way that makes it possible to remove
them easily. By doing so, we have managed to keep the ruin of Montclair
Castle for posterity in an unadulterated form.
The north-eastern round tower