Heritage plan to get children to castles: add video games

ENGLISH Heritage warned that today’s children were becoming the “icastle generation”, as it admitted defeat by offering Minecraft video game workshops at their best-loved sites.

The charity found children’s earliest memories of castles were twice as likely to be fictional than real, with young people naming their favourites as Hogwarts from Harry Potter and Elsa’s castle from Disney’s Frozen.

Urging parents to bring children to the 66 real English castles they look after, a new project will offer Minecraft castle-building workshops “for those who can’t leave the screen at home”.

A survey of 2,000 people found that while adults’ first castle sighting was likely to have been in real life, nearly two thirds of children’s first memory was from the television, film or a book.

Kate Mavor, the English Heritage chief executive, said: “We are in danger of creating an icastle generation, who have only ever seen a castle on a screen. Today’s children are increasingly likely to catch their first glimpse via TV or film rather than in real life.”