The Castle of Los Realejos

Castles usually generate a huge attraction on most people, because they are constructions that usually stand out because of their size or location, because of their greater or lesser character or condition of impregnable bulwark. Castles are headquarters and expression of power and wealth. They are milestones along the way.

When we think of castles, we immediately bring to our minds medieval stone constructions, scenes of encounters between ladies and knights, tournaments, banners and shields, thunder, lightning and ghosts. There is a whole mystical environment related to castles.

But although the fascination with castles has lasted through the centuries, it was in the XIX century, in the romantic time, when in a generalized movement in all the western societies, a true fury for them occurred, proliferating by Europe Magnificent and luxurious residential initiatives with battlements and towers, which no longer had a defensive purpose but merely decorative or evocative of that golden age where it prevailed in the eyes of the romantics, honor and passion, in their particular crusade for reviving or exalting the Medieval times and spirit.

In this context, the magnificent Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, which began its construction in 1869 or the beautiful Palacio da Pena in Sintra-Portugal which is dated in 1836 or the surprising Castle of Butrón in Biscay which was built in 1878 on the ruins of a Significant medieval tower of the Oñaz clan; and thus, in Tenerife, so many miles of physical distance of the European continent, but participating in the same tastes and ways of the time, Mr. Luis Renshaw constructed for himself, in the Valley of La Orotava, in 1862, in a very romantic manner, his own medieval castle, with no moat but surrounded by magnificent Canarian palms.

However, Mr. Renshaw, son of the American consul in Tenerife, never came to inhabit the castle, apparently he  sold it to an English citizen maned Mr. Remie Banquisset, who lived in the company of his butler Mr. Cecil Bisshop to whom he would leave in inheritance the estate.

Today, and after many years as a museum, the castle and its 8000m2 of gardens, is dedicated to the celebration of weddings and events, constituting one of the most important historical sites of the municipality of the Realejos in the north of the island of Tenerife.