What is Brandymore Castle?
Brandymore Castle (also spelled Brandimore) is a limestone outcrop in Arlington, Virginia rising above the flood plain of Four Mile Run. In the eighteenth century, it was used by surveyors as a visual reference, although today the castle is worn down by time and vandalism, hidden in a small forest behind some homes. It once stood proudly and was probably the highest point on the surrounding flood plain of Four Mile Run when the forest had been cleared and farms filled the area. Today, the trees have grown back as farming ceased in Arlington beginning in the Great Depression and continuing as the suburbs grew and agriculture became the business of large corporate farms. When Interstate 66 was came through Arlington, a sound dampening wall was placed very near to the landmark, which now hems it in further. Brandymore Castle now sits crumbling and hidden, buried in a forest, surrounded by homes, wedged between the route 66 noise barrier and a basketball court with nothing more than a historic marker. The stream bed of Four Mile Run still flows by at the foot of the castle, as if the "moat" of the surveyor's imagination is still protecting the site.
What attracts me to Brandymore is the imagination of the eighteenth century surveyors, who imagined a castle out of a pile of limestone. It must have looked very much like a castle, since limestone was used (or imitated) historically as the outer coat of castle (and other buildings in the ancient world) walls. Limestone can be impressively brilliant. I am attracted to the imaginary quality of the castle, emphasized by the juxtaposition of a concrete (not cement, but the solid reality of) form with the product of the imagination. It captures the essential quality of imagination, or what the dictionary defines as "the power of the mind to form images, especially of what is not present to the senses." In a sense, if you go looking for Brandymore Castle, you will never find it, for the castle only exists in the imagination.
This is the view from Brandymore Castle.
Brandymore Castle (also spelled Brandimore) is a limestone outcrop in Arlington, Virginia rising above the flood plain of Four Mile Run. In the eighteenth century, it was used by surveyors as a visual reference, although today the castle is worn down by time and vandalism, hidden in a small forest behind some homes. It once stood proudly and was probably the highest point on the surrounding flood plain of Four Mile Run when the forest had been cleared and farms filled the area. Today, the trees have grown back as farming ceased in Arlington beginning in the Great Depression and continuing as the suburbs grew and agriculture became the business of large corporate farms. When Interstate 66 was came through Arlington, a sound dampening wall was placed very near to the landmark, which now hems it in further. Brandymore Castle now sits crumbling and hidden, buried in a forest, surrounded by homes, wedged between the route 66 noise barrier and a basketball court with nothing more than a historic marker. The stream bed of Four Mile Run still flows by at the foot of the castle, as if the "moat" of the surveyor's imagination is still protecting the site.
What attracts me to Brandymore is the imagination of the eighteenth century surveyors, who imagined a castle out of a pile of limestone. It must have looked very much like a castle, since limestone was used (or imitated) historically as the outer coat of castle (and other buildings in the ancient world) walls. Limestone can be impressively brilliant. I am attracted to the imaginary quality of the castle, emphasized by the juxtaposition of a concrete (not cement, but the solid reality of) form with the product of the imagination. It captures the essential quality of imagination, or what the dictionary defines as "the power of the mind to form images, especially of what is not present to the senses." In a sense, if you go looking for Brandymore Castle, you will never find it, for the castle only exists in the imagination.
This is the view from Brandymore Castle.
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