00:00So I'm Andrea, and this is Richard. We're at the carriage Ely, near Ely, and we're in Paddington,
00:07or Paddington Carriage. It's a converted GWR carriage that we've converted to a holiday let.
00:14So the story of how we ended up with a carriage, we went to a local friend's barbeque,
00:19and he happened to have a carriage in the garden, that was about August time.
00:23And just after quite a few drinks, I joke and he said, oh, can you get me one?
00:29And nothing more was said, and then April, we got a phone call, your carriage will be here tomorrow.
00:34And then the panic button, what have we done?
00:38And we could see it arriving down the hill, so we walked up,
00:42and it managed to get in the gates in one move.
00:46And then they laid a false line down, and it's sitting now on its own track.
00:51And then what do we do? The ideas then had to evolve as to how we converted it,
00:56literally as it's come off the track, full of graffiti, full of rubbish.
00:59It was quite grimy, wasn't it?
01:02Yeah, and we'd never done, well, no one had done a train before to convert it into a holiday let,
01:08so we didn't have a clue.
01:11So then was the task of converting it.
01:15So first of all, we had all the gubbins that make the train work, that we didn't actually need anymore.
01:22So those were donated to the Heritage Line, and hopefully that's brought another carriage back to life.
01:27Then we had all the seats, and the carpets, and the luggage racks, what do we do with those?
01:32And we managed to sell those to Apple TV.
01:36That's gone to be a film set for Slow Horses.
01:39Nothing's been wasted, we haven't thrown anything away.
01:42Yeah, they had the toilets, bins, sinks.
01:45The water tanks that came out of the shower, we've turned into seating outside.
01:50And then we had the job of designing how we wanted to lay it out.
01:54So the carriage had its own little toilet area, but it was too small, we couldn't get a shower in there.
02:00So we wanted to move the toilet, but we had to then cut a new waste pipe,
02:04but the train floor is solid steel.
02:07To actually cut through was quite a task.
02:10So we wanted to make just a nice couple retreat that people could come here and chill out and unwind.
02:17So we just wanted a king size bed, didn't we?
02:20We thought we could reuse the seating, this nice dining area.
02:23Tiny little kitchen, just enough to keep you going for a couple of days.
02:27But we wanted a nice big shower in the bathroom, so we made the bathroom quite big to get a nice shower.
02:34So the carriage was decommissioned in 21, and we got her in 22.
02:40And we've split it in half, the route it used to drive was Paddington to Penzance,
02:44so we've called one end Paddington and the other end Penzance.
02:48We're in Paddington now.
02:50Penzance is done more of a luxury theme, so I've gone for velvet and fabrics.
02:55So the same layout, but different decor.
02:58Penzance, you've got the pond view from the top of the stairs and a big hot tub.
03:03So there's loads of quirky little touches that you'll find if you come and stay.
03:07We've added some sound effects in here, the emergency pull cord.
03:11I know as a kid I always wanted to pull that cord, and now you can.
03:22There's little touches of graffiti that you'll find when you come and stay.
03:25The original telephone in the foyer that you guard with speak to the driver.
03:33We've managed to add some effects to that and bring that back to life.
03:37So we got her in 21 and honestly made a genuine mistake.
03:42We didn't think we needed planning because it's moveable.
03:45She came on a lorry and could leave on a lorry, not a permanent fixture.
03:49However, it turns out we did do need planning, so we put in a planning application.
03:55Sadly, the council turned us down on the grounds that we're in the country,
04:00they don't support any development in the country and there isn't a need for it.
04:05So then we thought, actually there is a need, we're open and we're booked.
04:10So we put in a new application with more supporting evidence
04:14and thankfully they've changed their minds and we now have our full planning permission.
04:20So we can stay and carry on.
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