‘It’s a bit too castle-y’: plans to turn Cumbrian fortress into eco-attraction

This time last year, Ewan Frost-Pennington, 32, was living in San Francisco and working as a renewable energy consultant. Photograph: Colin Mcpherson/The Guardian

In 1990, the year Ewan Frost-Pennington was born, the final bears left Muncaster Castle in the westernmost corner of the Lake District. Winnie, an Asiatic black bear, departed Cumbria for Dudley zoo, along with Inca, her daughter, and her sister, Gretel.

Three decades later, the bear pit has now been covered over with a solar farm. It is the brainchild of Frost-Pennington, the heir to the 800-year-old pink granite fortress, as he tries to make Muncaster the first carbon-zero castle in the UK.