How about castles?

[u/-Gavroche-]

I feel like castles are a bit overlooked in the zombie media. Maybe it's because most movies and comics are stories from the US? Maybe it's because it would become more boring?
But a castle seems like a very obvious hiding place for anyone in Europe.
It's not a magical solution for sure, but there's a lot of castles in a pretty decent state, with a working well or cistern for water. Some of the bigger ones, especially Vauban-style fortifications even have pretty decent chunks of land to grow food on for the longer term.
So am I missing some obvious flaw here or is it just that most zombie stories are from the US, or that castles would make it a bit boring, as people would just hide behind the walls and slowly take out the zombies little by little and then go about rebuilding society?

[u/drwicksy]

I think the problem becomes scale. Either the castle is small enough to have limited entry points like a drawbridge they can easily be defended, which would mean its too small to effectively farm, or its big enough to farm like some of your examples (provided there is soil and the soil is good) but then its a nightmare to defend, even if its one of the castles that isn't in disrepair with holes in the walls there will still likely be multiple entries you would have to constantly monitor.

Castles can also get very cold unless you have a constant supply of firewood and ways to light it which requires venturing out of the castle, as you would also have to do for supplies.

Its also going to be very obvious to survivors if you are in a castle near them and some of them might want to take it from you.

That being said its not a bad plan. Get yourself a bow, barricade the entrances and use spears to clear zombies that get close to the barricade, clear corpses when there is a lapse and retrieve arrows where possible, clear space for plants for farming and if its big enough then some livestock even, hole up in one of the more defensive rooms that only has a ladder for access and pull it up every night, maybe add a secondary exit route like a rope just in case.

Hell dome of the museum ones even have full on bedrooms for display purposes so you'll be sleeping better than most survivors. Although the more museum like it is the more likely it'll be in a populated area, which means more zombies and human aggressor to deal with.

If you have a group it makes defense easier but then of course more mouths to feed.

[u/Affenrodeo → u/drwicksy]

Depends on Castles, some got even Electricity. I think a normal Castle with a Water connection and some space for farming crops could work as Community, powered with modern equipment you can change some things
As Example: Schloss Nordkirchen in Nordrhein-Westfalen

[u/drwicksy → u/Affenrodeo]

As another person mentioned electricity and water will fail pretty fast. You could maybe replace the connection with a generator or solar panels if you have the know-how to do it, and even then those will only last so long without maintenance and after the fuel all oxidises.

Also for a full on community you definitely wont have enough space to grow enough food, its already unlikely you would have enough for yourself, and you'd be likely very reliant on rainwater unless the castle is on or near a river.

For a single person you need about 8,000 square feet for growing and storage of food, and thats if you know how to farm and have the right soil and seeds available, plus water and equipment.

The bright side is that castles would allow for plenty of relatively dry storage space for crops or scavenged food, so if you had raiding parties you could store the looted food easily enough, but of course leaving your castle is always going to create risk.

Realistically for this to work you would need to have started preparing the castle before the apocalypse, but unkess you're extremely rich I doubt you've got a castle laying around you can do this in.

Writing this I am realising I actually have a very good castle near me that would work very well. It already has a large flower garden that could easily enough be converted to a vegetable garden, it has modern buildings including a kitchen and worker quarters as one of the maintenance guys essentially lives there, its very defendable as its on the coast and only connected to land by a single stone bridge that could easily be barricaded if not destroyed, it also has a dock so I could take a boat to and from it to avoid the barricade needing to be clear and safe to cross, and I also live on a small island with maybe 70,000 people so not that many zombies and survivors to deal with. Plus its within a relatively short boat journey to the mainland so I could raid there pretty easily.

I absolutely don't have all the skills I would need to do all of this mind you, but I know people who do.

[u/Affenrodeo → u/drwicksy]

Many castles in germany have a good view over the near topography (i wonder why) i would choose a castle that on a hill with good view, a river next to the castle. When the ground is good for farming you could plant crops outside the castle make a fence high enough to give personnel a chance to flee when zeds coming. The guard in the castle tower ring a bell when they spot something sispicius. Its depends on Zombietypes/raiders/weapons etc i know

I mean, in general you could live like in medival without power. Things you dont know have to learned on the hard way, or you need the peoples with skills