A postman spent 33 years building this extraordinary palace

Ferdinand Cheval began building the Palais idéal in Hauterives, France, in 1879 and finished in 1912. The self-taught builder spent 33 years creating it.

Cheval collected stones along his postal rounds and transported them with a wheelbarrow. Lime helped bind the stones together as the palace grew over decades.

Nature and the worlds he encountered through illustrated reading helped inspire its animals, giants and fantastical architecture.

These photographs show the finished palace and its details in later years. They are not photographs of Cheval constructing it. Two of the images are photographer-stitched panoramas of the real architecture.

See something we should correct? Send a correction.