I thought the treadmill crane was fictional.

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Published 2022-09-26
The treadwheel crane, or treadmill crane, sounds like something from Astérix or the Flintstones. But at Guédelon in France, not only do they have one: they're using it to help build their brand new castle. ▪ More about Guédelon: www.guedelon.fr/

Camera: Simon Gillouin
Editor: Michelle Martin twitter.com/mrsmmartin
Producer: Axel Zeiliger block8production.com/

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All Comments (21)
  • @TomScottGo
    The round of applause at the end didn't feel justified...!
  • @prysthaea7735
    "We use modern safety equipment, because we're not here to see how many people died making a midieval castle" is such a hilarious way to put it.
  • @blundy1
    Imagine being described as a "low ranking, local, fairly modest nobleman."
  • @nicokelly6453
    This is one of the coolest reconstructive archaeology projects I've seen.
  • I actually quite literally added my stone to that building, by doing a "builder internship". Spent a week there helping in various places of the construction, and the last day I helped the masons who were, at the time, working on the gate towers. People couldn't go in the castle by the bridge, because the double treadmill crane was sat there, and a friend and I operated it for a day. Really cool experience (and ultimately working in such a place for a living would be my dream)
  • @nutsbutdum
    This castle is going to confuse archeologists a thousand years from now.
  • Ive known about this project for a while but its annoyingly difficult to find anything more up to date than like 2013. I didnt know they had to add an extra ten years! And I love they reused the line 'Were not here to find out about the number of deaths from building a castle' I hear it nearly every time I watch something about Guédelon Castle
  • @ceepuck1511
    in response to Tom mentioning how he got dizzy looking straight ahead, being the "hamster" in the hamster wheel was something blind people were used for since it was something they could do and be productive at and as an added bonus you didn't have to worry about them being scared of heights
  • @doc3255
    I feel like Tom has fallen into a "weird stuff in France" and "historical reenactment" rabbit hole lately and I love every second of it (so does he, apparently)
  • @zappababe8577
    I wondered who was paying for building this magnificent castle, assuming that it would be the government. No - it is being financed by a private company, and the admission paid by the 300,000 visitors the castle attracts is paying for all the marvellous reconstruction we see here. It is very gratifying to know that so many people are still so enthusiastic about history that their admission fees are enough to pay for building such an immense castle. Well done, citizens of France!
  • @havvik3505
    I love how toms coping mechanism is always “I’m gonna just talk a lot and I don’t care if I’m not saying logical things, narration will save me”
  • @eaaeeeea
    As a tech enthusiast it gives me a warm and fuzzy feeling to know even the Romans had such an awesome technology as cranes at their disposal! I just added this castle to my places to visit, I can't believe there's such an awesome project like this that I wouldn't have ever heard of if it weren't for Tom Scott.
  • Love the hardhats at 2:10 - looks like they colored them to not stick out so while not period authentic it maintains the medieval vibe while still being safe.
  • @Evan-rj9xy
    I saw another documentary on this castle and they mentioned that, although they have a historical ropemaking workshop on site, they use modern ropes for hoisting all the stones. Historical plant fiber ropes would be cool, but modern ropes have a known breaking point and you really don't want any unknown risks with hundreds of pounds suspended in the air. Such a cool project.
  • That's really great that someone out there is building something in such an historic way.
  • @rhettorical
    I knew it was real because Treadmill Crane is a tech you can research in Age of Empires II and the manual that came with the game had historical sources explaining everything.
  • @panfrei5932
    in Breisach in Germany we still have an original, it stands in the wheel tower named after it and was intended to fetch water from the 41 m deepen well. A funny story is that Napoleon's soldiers, who occupied the city, used to voluntarily run in the wheel to impress the women fetching water.
  • @pROaBDUR
    02:17 "So obviously we're not trying to discover how many people were killed or injured in the 13th century.". The Lady has got some advanced level of humour right there.
  • @Christopher_S
    This is SOOOOOO cool. Building a genuine castle from scratch would be my childhood (now that I think about it, adult too) dream!
  • @the-white-eye
    imagine being an archeologist in like 3000 years and finding a mid 13th century castle only to test the rocks or smth and finding out it was actually from the 2000s