via press release:
Once-spectacular historic buildings lie abandoned and rotting across the country in critical condition and in danger of being lost forever. The tragedy is that these buildings are far more than simply bricks and mortar, they are the keepers of our past.
RESTORATION HOME, presented by Caroline Quentin, is BBC Two’s fascinating new series that follows the fortunes of six properties, each one of which has played its part in making Britain great.
These fragile buildings have found would be saviours, new owners desperate to breath life into these crumbling ruins by creating their own 21st century dream homes.
As these heroic owners get down to work, architectural expert, Kieran Long and historian, Dr. Kate Williams, help unearth the fascinating stories buried deep in each building’s past. They turn detective to throw light on the important role these architectural gems once played.
For Caroline Quentin, this is a subject very close to her heart and one in which she has plenty of experience admitting to being a serial restorer over the last decade. “I love everything about old buildings. I’ve spent years restoring them striving for the perfect family home, so I know, only too well, the hard path of restoration our families are facing”.
The cast list of properties include a medieval manor, a 17th century mine owner’s house, a Queen Anne country residence, a Georgian stately home, a Victorian Gothic church and a mid-1900s pumping station.
Six precious buildings, six owners with a mission and six intriguing journeys into Britain’s past.
The series will broadcast on BBC Two in May.
EXPERT BIOGRAPHIES
Kieran Long
Kieran Long is a journalist of architecture, critic and teacher. He has edited both the Architectural Review and the Architect’s Journal. He was the launch deputy editor of Icon magazine in 2003, and its principal architecture critic for three and a half years. He is also the former deputy editor of Building Design and World Architecture magazines. He won the IBP Architectural Critic of the Year award in 2004 (the year of the award’s inception) and was nominated again in 2005 and 2006. He was nominated for the PPA New Editor of the Year award in 2008
As a broadcaster, Kieran has appeared on BBC News 24, the Culture Show, Channel 4 News as well as BBC London Radio and most recently the World Service commentating on architecture, design and condiments. Kieran is currently studying for his PhD and is the architecture critic for the Evening Standard.
Dr. Kate Williams
Kate studied her BA at Somerville College, Oxford where she was a College Scholar. She then took her MA at Queen Mary, University of London, and her DPhil at Oxford.
Kate has written books on Emma Hamilton and Queen Victoria, and her historical novel, The Pleasures of Men, will be published next year. She is also writing her third history book, due to be published in 2012.
Her second book, Becoming Queen, about the passionate youth of Queen Victoria and Princess Charlotte, England’s lost queen, was published in September 2008. It was serialised in the Sunday Telegraph – Stella Magazine, and a Book of the Year in the Tatler and Spectator. Kate discussed it on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour,The Guestlist on Classic FM and the Simon Mayo’s programme on Radio 5 Live.
She appears regularly on radio and television, and writes comment pieces for various newspapers and magazines, including the Sunday Telegraph, the Daily Telegraph, the Independent, the Spectator, Time Out, BBC History Magazine and History Today. She reviews history books for History Today and fiction for the Financial Times.
PROPERTIES AND PEOPLE
Stoke Hall, Grade II*, Calver, Derbyshire
Georgian 1757
Owners: Natalie & Steve
Local, childhood sweethearts, Steve and Natalie, started married life in a 3-bed semi. Now he’s a self-made millionaire with a successful business supplying high tech products to the energy business. They purchased Stoke Hall in 2009 convinced it would make their perfect family home. Its leaking roof, extensive dry rot and other major structural problems, have proved too much for previous owners attempting to rescue this 30-bedroom Palladian, listed mansion. And at very serious risk of being lost forever is the Hall’s 250-year-old Georgian décor which, by some miracle, has managed to survive.
As the rot is stripped away and restoration starts, the past life of the house begins to emerge revealing architectural and social connections to the highest and most influential in the land.
Nutbourne Pumping Station, Pulborough, West Sussex
Early 20th Century
Owners: Nick & Bridget
It was a hopeless case of love at first sight, just as it was for Nick and Bridget themselves, when they saw the derelict and damp pumping station. For years, the couple was frustrated by the meagre size of modern family houses in Britain, including the one they lived in. The pumping station offered them and their two 5-year-old twins space at a price they hoped wouldn’t break the bank. They want to turn this industrial bunker full of rusting, heavy duty pumping machinery into a carbon efficient home for life. As the ambitious restoration plan gets underway, the startling importance of this wrecked building unfolds. It was at the heart of a revolution that saved our grandparents’ generation and changed society forever.
Calverton Manor, Grade II*, Calverton, Milton Keynes
14th Century Medieval
Owners: Jeanette & David
David and Jeanette were facing the terrifying prospect of a quiet retirement – not something they would do well. So, with their three grown up daughters no longer at home, they wanted a big challenge. A nationwide search began to find a historic property to restore, a place where they could entertain their growing brood of grandchildren. Right under their noses was Calverton Manor, a neglected medieval property truly teetering on the brink of disaster. The building is a collage of different eras but as the centuries of building are peeled back, the Manor reveals that it’s been witness to high treason, arranged marriages and murder most foul.
St Thomas A Beckett Church, Grade II*, Pensford, Somerset
Victorian Gothic Revival 1896
Owners: Paul & Laura
Ruined, rotten, wrecked and unloved, the St. Thomas a Beckett church is badly in need of a redeemer. Deconsecrated in the 1960s, it’s just one of hundreds of British churches disused every year. Step in childhood sweethearts and young newlyweds, Paul and Laura. Working their way up the property ladder, Paul spotted the church in 2007 and the couple decided this was the family home for them. They purchased the listed church and with a tight budget, there was only one way to realize their dream. Paul, with very little renovation work under his belt, would take on the majority of work. As this former place of worship turns into a home, the church gives up its secrets – the dark times which marked the beginning of the end and its links to an architectural movement that would change style forever.
Stanwick Hall, Grade II*, Stanwick, Northamptonshire
1705 Queen Anne
Owners: Gina & Simon
Years of neglect have left fungus growing on walls running wet with damp, timbers so rotten that one good storm might bring down the roof. It’s in truly appalling condition. Stanwick Hall faces an incredible battle for survival one which City high-flyers, Gina and Simon, have taken on. Home for them is a converted dog-biscuit factory in East London but Simon’s children from a previous marriage, live in Northamptonshire. So a move to the country would bring the family closer together. As the restoration throws up more and more serious problems, long forgotten evidence comes to light showing it was built on the biggest financial scandal of the early 18th century and was emblematic of the huge upheaval in the early 19th century that changed the landscape of Britain forever.
Big House, Landshipping, Narberth, Wales
17th Century
Owners: Alun & Claire
No-one has lived in Big House for a hundred years and it shows, no-one can remember the last time it had a roof on. Who would want to tackle a restoration job as big as this? Alun has lived in this part of the world all his life and he’s had the crazy dream of owning Big House ever since he was a little boy. He bought the house 10-years ago and progress has been painfully slow. Self-employed, he’s been working on the house as and when he can. But he’s determined to turn his dream ruin into his dream home with his partner Clare. Between them, they have five children, four horses and a dog and he thinks they could all be living at Big House in less than a year. Digging deep into the archives, this house is the key to an empire built on coal and an insight into the dirty tricks of political corruption.
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