Books less traveled: Castles in the Air

Problem is, we’ve run out of places to run to. That used to be part of the answer when the world went nuts. Or when you started waking up in the morning thinking the best way to deal with the neighbors might be just to shoot ’em, putting everybody out of their misery thataway. Saddle up old Blaze (or pack the wife and kids in a wagon) and head west.

Like I said, that’s a problem now: The West’s a gonner, overrun by new money and old tourists. We ran out of it maybe 50 years ago.

You can still hitch up to a book, though, and that’s some relief. To my mind one of the best places to look is down a lesser-traveled path, maybe in the “travel narrative” section at Borders (certainly not among the best-sellers).

Take Judy Corbett’s “Castles in the Air” for example. My idea of a good read --- sit down to graze and find you can’t stop until you’ve swallowed it whole.

Granted, you’ve got to like a yarn where the main character is a cranky old house --- in this case Gwydir Castle near Llanrwst in North Wales --- to like this book. But I do, and did.

Corbett, a bookbinder, and her spouse, Peter Welford (an architectural historian), got fed up with the 20th/21st century, too; saddled up and headed west to the 16th.

When Corbett and Welford found Gwydir, seat of the once-powerful Wynn family, during the early 1990s it was heading toward dereliction. Rebuilt on the site of an earlier house by Meredith Wynn about 1490, it had survived quite nicely into early 20th century, then suffered a variety of indignities --- gutted of its contents (including the paneling and other fittings of two of its most important rooms) during a 1920s auction, damaged by fire, victimized by a 1970s “restoration.” Finally, it had deteriorated into a squalid nightclub and home to squatters with failing roof and in the opinion of many --- including Britain’s National Trust --- beyond redemption.

As sometimes inexplicably happens, however, Corbett and Welford fell in love, scraped together enough cash, bought the relic --- along with 10 acres of overgrown garden --- and moved in during November of 1994.

Thereby hangs the tale of its gradual restoration, bit by bit, stone by stone, slate by slate, never with adequate financial resources, always with leaking roof and during most of the process with no heat other than that provided by open fires.

The story is replete with ghosts --- among others an ancient hound and perhaps Lady Margaret Cave, who turned nasty when Corbett and Welford decided to turn their partnership into a marriage --- but mercifully short on sex and violence, excepting the damage a damp, cold, falling-down old house can do.

A major Welford coup was discovering that the fittings of Gwydir’s grand Jacobean dining room had been purchased for William Randolph Hearst, then abuilding San Simeon, at that 1920s auction, packed into 14 crates weighing six tons and shipped to the United States --- then never unpacked. They found the untouched crates in a remote Manhattan warehouse, among holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and with help from Cawd, the Welsh historic monuments association, purchased the fittings and returned them to their rightful home at Gwydir.

Like all good yarns, this one has a happy (continuing) ending --- restoration of Gwydir’s dining room attracted the attention of the Prince of Wales, who paid the Welfords a royal visit during 1998.

And today, with its roof and other parts secured, the restoration continues as the Welfords raise operating cash from tourists and bed-and-breakfast patrons.

Gwydir has its own Web site, if you’d like to take a look: http://www.gwydircastle.co.uk/

Corbett, Judy, “Castles in the Air,” London: Ebury Press (Random House), 2004. Available in paperback for about $14.