Daily Mail- A farmer has been ordered to tear down a castle he secretly built and hid beneath haystacks and tarpaulin after losing a six year planning battle. Robert Fidler built the impressive castle - complete with ramparts and cannon - on his land in Redhill, Surrey, in 2001 but kept it hidden under the 40ft-high stack of hay bales until 2006. The 63-year-old thought he would be immune from planning rules as his family had been living there for more than four years and nobody had objected to it. Guidelines state that anything built without planning permission, but remaining unchallenged for four years or more, could not be ‘enforced against’ by planners. But Reigate & Banstead Borough Council refused to grant retrospective planning permission and he was ordered to demolish the four-bed property - Honeycrock Farmhouse - in 2007. For the past six years Mr Fidler and wife Laura has been through the appeals system as they fought to keep their home.  They have been through hearings at the Planning Inspectorate and the High Court and many appeals, but were finally ordered to knock down the castle after a two-day hearing of the Planning Inspectorate, a government agency responsible for ruling on planning appeals. The report, written by inspector Sara Morgan and published last week, said Mr Fidler had kept his home ‘concealed’ behind a shield of straw bales’ and that he had ‘set out deliberately to deceive’ the council by using the four-year rule.

There’s only one guy I respect more than Bob Fidler and thats the guy who took 40 years to build a UFO spaceship house.  Aside from that, I can’t think of anything better than living in a castle. For fucks sake this thing has functioning cannons and ramparts. I don’t even know what the fuck a rampart is! All I know is that A) they have red glare and B) I’d rather have them in my house than not have them in my house.

Living in a castle is just like the adult version of hanging out in a fort or a tree house when you were a kid. And there was absolutely nothing better than building forts back then. Every time you’re just hanging around your house, you’re actually King of the Castle. Lord of the Manor. Concealed by 40 foot stacks of hay. In the event the rebels crack the walls just blast them with your cannons. Everyone else in their 60s is living in some condo or an old folks home or something while Bob Fidler resides in the castle keep atop the highest tower overlooking his land.

What a kick in the dick its gonna be when this dude has to inevitably demolish this place and move into some lame 3 bedroom 2 bath in a cookie cutter housing development. Have fun mowing the lawn and cleaning out the gutters and shit instead of loading the cannons and manning watch in the towers.