Who Will Save Me?

the mansion house at Tura, Hungary [click to enlarge this and all images]

Tura, with its turrets, towers and trap-doors is seductive. And we have long wished to be seduced by this Loire Renaissance fantasy of 1883, the work of Ybl Miklós, architect of the most splendid Budapest Opera House, which stands, battered and scarred, abandoned some ten years since by the occupying Soviet troops.

the Palm House at Tura seen on the extreme right of the main building

Just days ago, standing in the erstwhile Palm House through which shafts of October sun penetrated the broken casements, we reflected on the fate of this, and other, endangered Hungarian mansions. Here, at Tura, the signs of serious neglect are all too apparent. Plaster and stucco crumble, cold damp seeps through roofs and walls, iron corrodes, glass shatters.

the principal staircase within the entrance hall at Tura

Climbing the principal staircase, relatively undamaged, the first floor presents a sad picture: a bedroom corridor echoing to our footfall; pit props in support of a collapsing ceiling; a bird nesting atop the pediment of a door; a balustrade threatening to fall.

a bedroom corridor at Tura

a window swings idly in an upstairs room at Tura

Later on, now in the village of Aszód, we merrily trespass into the Baroque splendour of the palace there where institutional use has paid a heavy price. As at Tura, change and decay, but here we take flight in the face of a threatening caretaker with, we are convinced, his rabid dog in tow straining on a seemingly fragile leash.

a corner of the Baroque palace at Aszód in Hungary

Homeward, but not before we have tried, and failed, to gain entry into the Sleeping Beauty of a castle at Acsa where bell towers silently call across the wooded valley.

How romantic it all is. And we, who pride ourselves on being level headed, have fallen in love. In love with the prettiest little manor house in the far west of the country.

could this become the Hattatt Kastély............?

Affordable, just! Requiring complete renovation, a certainty! On Saturday we have an order to view. How exciting is that?!!