Breaking Into Cargill's Castle

The house with the bay window is on a corner towards the steep end of Stuart Street. It appears largely unchanged, though there is no evidence of a rabbit infestation, and no snotty Prince Valiant-type lurking about. Warm from the walk and a bit shaken from the steepness, I cautiously traced the property's exterior​, peering in where I could. I wasn't quite up to knocking on the door and asking its perplexed residents if I could scope out their living area and reenact a music video from the '80s, though I did, on a later trip, stick my idiotic hand-drawn 'Architects of the New Dunedin Sound Wanted' flier in their letterbox. I stuck one over a plaque at the Octagon, too, and it stayed there for a couple of days. No bites.

The other part of the video, the part where the band and co. dance recklessly about a derelict building, was filmed at Cargill's Castle. Built at the behest of Edward Cargill, son of the Otago-founding William Cargill and brother of Tunnel Beach-commissioning John, this cliffside castle and one-time cabaret joint is resolutely closed to the public. It stands abandoned on private property behind a dreary housing development. There are no signs and it does not exist in brochures and guides. I looped the Corstophine bus route before an intervening driver showed me where to go. Stepping off in high fog, I made my way through tumbling streets to the nearest publicly accessible point. This turned out to be a grassy field between two houses. A sloping plain led down to the ocean, but its gradient required a clearer day to gauge. The castle, apparently somewhere to the left, was blocked off by a barbed wire fence with a stern warning sign. Through the fence I could see another field, with a stone fence at its far side and gnarled trees beyond that. I presumed the castle lay somewhere near those trees, but the fog made it impossible to tell. I did not fancy my chances of scaling a barbed wire fence unscathed. Had I come all this way for a photo of a fence?

I did the right thing first and knocked on the door of the adjoining property. No answer. Must be at work. I crept round the side but this only got me access to the next field. The castle must be part of a different property. Deflated, I wandered back to the road and began the return journey. When I reached the next house up, however, I noticed that there was a private road into the property that curved towards the castle grounds. Seemingly no one about, I stole my way along the path and discovered that it indeed led to the section behind the stone wall I had seen earlier. From this vantage I could finally see the walls of the castle, though they lay behind another barbed wire fence with another stern sign, this time warning of multiple hazards.

I followed the fence until I was out of the view of any of the neighbouring houses, all the while looking for a way in. I fancied an overhanging tree might grant me access but its branches turned out to be far too dense. Then I noticed that there was a small gap at the bottom of the fence. If the wire had sufficient give, it might just be possible to crawl through. Of course, I would still have to contend with those barbs. My backpack turned out to be an ideal solution. Using its bulk to prop up the wire, I created a space large enough to accommodate my diminishing slimness, while one of the bag's clips allowed me to safely pin back the lowest row of barbed wire. It was surprisingly easy to slide under.

It didn't take long to spot the promised hazards. These ranged from stray metal objects in the overgrown grass to collapsed floors and dangling detritus in the building itself. Sensibly closed off, I have to say. The interior walls bore years of graffiti and there was evidence of smashed bottles on most of the floors. Some rooms were blocked off by gaping holes, so I had to climb through the large beachfront windows (seen with silhouetted figures in the film clip) to cover the whole building. The fog-assisted ambiance, slightly creepy, slightly mystical, justified every effort I had made to reach this point.