ONLY OPEN IN THEIR FREDERICKSBURG location from 1996 to 1999, the Virginia Renaissance Faire attempted to create a replica medieval square where dads could be bards and bards wouldn’t be laughed at, but today all that remains are the tick-infested, moldering husks of those bygone fantasies.Built to create an immersive atmosphere, the Virginia Renaissance Faire attempted to create the illusion of a bustling feudal port. Multiple buildings were erected in the style of medieval European architecture with towers and improbable buildings on stilts. There was even a replica sailing ship sitting in the small pond on the lot, where performers would put on small shows and entertainments.

It’s a stretch to imagine that this country village was once animated with knights, maidens, minstrels and jesters. The music of penny whistles and steinfulls of ale made day and night merry. Now, fifteen years later, a ghost town is all that testifies to a short-lived effort to recreate Renaissance England in the Old Dominion.There’s been a lot written about Virginia’s abandoned Renaissance Faire (on the DCist and Lucent Moments blogs, for instance). The venture was an investment gone bad, an Elizabethan town built in the mid-1990s on a less-than-ideal site. This Renaissance Faire became mired in muck and debt after a few spells of nasty weather and went belly-up.

Dost thou crave wonder and merriment? Hast thine life become stale, free of adventure and escapade? Fret not, friends, allay your fears. Come, mount your noble steeds. I know of a wondrous, mirthful place, one where fantasy hath never perished, where splendor and ceremony is absolute. ‘Tis just a day’s journey, on horseback.Come again, my friend? Thou wishes to take thine Ford Focus? Very well. Come, let us make haste. Shotgun.Yes, a mere 60 miles outside of D.C. sits a particularly unusual piece of abandoned history. Just off of U.S. Route 3 in Fredericksburg, in the middle of what locals like to call “Sherwood Forest,” the Virginia Renaissance Faire is slowly returning to the earth, its plywood facades and half-eaten turkey legs feeding the forest that’s reclaiming it.