My very first LEGO® set was bestowed upon me in the late 80s. Santa kindly bought me set 6080: King’s Castle set. The set was first released in 1984, but I received it a few years later. Almost 40 years on, I still own that set. Like many childhood toys, it’s been living in a storage box, along with other old LEGO sets. It’s been in the loft and for a short time even visited the shed. As today is the 90th Anniversary of the LEGO Group and part of the celebrations has seen a brand new LEGO Castle set released, I decided it was the perfect time to try and rebuild the King’s Castle – my first ever LEGO set.
Technically, this is the first time I’ve built the set, as back when I was much younger, I wanted to play straight away so the sets were pre-built the night before by my long-suffering Mum. Unfortunately, the instructions hadn’t fully survived so I used a digital copy, handily available on a number of sites. Head to Brickset, search any set and there will be links to instructions.
Most of the Minifigures from the set were already at hand as some of them were featured in the LEGO Minifigures Year by Year book from DK, released in 2012. So it was a case of delving into the plastic container of LEGO bricks and digging out all the light grey pieces. Although a couple are missing and some others have been replaced with donor bricks, the King’s Castle has been rebuilt. The older style instructions are certainly an experience, they didn’t list the elements you’d need for each step and guessing what they were and where they went was fun.
The set is the inspiration for the newly released Lion Knights’ Castle and just like the new castle, the King’s Castle features a working drawbridge and portcullis, although their operation is way more simple. It was a fun, if not difficult experience rebuilding this retro LEGO set and even more seeing it next to the much more complex and details descendant.
