A former military man who spent 5 years building a huge castle in a field was ordered to demolish it (6 photos)

Army veteran Mikey Allen's lovingly built two-storey castle on a mountainside flies his country's flag proudly, but now he needs to convince the council not to demolish it.





Mikey Allen, 43, built an impressive two-storey castle in Wales to help him cope with post-traumatic stress disorder, but now the planning council says it should be torn down.

Now the man must try to persuade the council not to demolish the castle he built, as the impressive structure has become a place of pilgrimage for people with mental health problems who seek refuge there, just as he once did. Since it was built, the castle has been visited by around 10,000 vulnerable people, but that hasn't swayed the hearts of planners who believe it should be torn down.



The local authority said he had breached planning rules because planning permission is required to build on farmland. However, Mikey, 43, who started building the castle on farmland five years ago while homeless, is refusing to give up.

"We've already challenged some of the points the council has put forward. People are helping me liaise with the council. We agree that we can knock it down, but we want to keep it. There can be schools, there can be all sorts of projects, an official base and an outlet. But without the council's support, at some point it will all turn into a stone wall," the Afghanistan war veteran said.





His mental health has been in tatters since serving in Afghanistan in 2012 with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Welsh alongside the Afghan police. After leaving the armed forces with a back injury in 2015, he was left with post-traumatic stress disorder and wanted to die. After surviving, he found it difficult to integrate into society and a world he could no longer comprehend after the horrors he had witnessed, so in 2017 he went to live in the wilderness.



He began building an isolated shelter near where the castle now stands, drinking from a public tap and buying food from a supermarket at discount prices. In 2018, his hut was demolished because it was on land owned by Nature Resources Wales. But the owners of a nearby farm, who saw his nightly fires, offered him a caravan to stay in and the freedom to build what he wanted on their land.



Although he can no longer build his castle, Mikey still receives visitors. Many of them are ex-servicemen and women, as well as those struggling with other aspects of life. Despite all the effort he has put into the castle, he does not consider it his own.

"It is more of a community castle than mine. It is a place where everyone comes when they want. All sorts of people have come here to chat, from teenagers to people in their 70s," he added.

Mikey is determined to save the castle from demolition because it is a fortress of safety for many.