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Grand.Designs.S27E05.Stratford-upon-Avon.2025
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00:00It's been some time since anybody built a castle, but of course in their time there
00:12were incredibly important structures. They were military. They protected and
00:19defended. They were the place where the village would run when under attack.
00:24They were also, of course, to show off. They were homes designed to impress, even to
00:31entertain royalty. The thing is, of course, they did cost a king's ransom to build, so
00:39you'd have to be out of your mind to want to build something like this these days.
00:54Once upon a time, on a hilltop in Warwickshire stood, at first glance, a shiny castle.
01:19It was bought by an entrepreneur, Piers and Emma, a police officer.
01:28Look how white it is today. It's really, really clean.
01:32I know. It looks brand new.
01:34It does, yeah.
01:36After forking out 1.4 million for it, they plan to lovingly and carefully...
01:42Tear it down.
01:43It's a horrible looking building, and it's Pebble Dash.
01:48However, the local villagers have their pitchforks out.
01:52Absolutely aghast. I can't believe that they would be demolishing such a lovely building.
01:57I'm devastated. Whatever comes in its place is going to be a hard task to follow.
02:04But, lo! Piers and Emma aren't necessarily the villains here. Long, long ago, this 17th century farmstead was given a theatrical makeover with turrets.
02:16Years passed, and the crumbling folly was remodelled with an arts and crafts wing.
02:21It's just a mishmash of nothing, unfortunately, now, isn't it?
02:24Not if you like arts and crafts.
02:26It's a shame.
02:27The abandoned dishevelled folly was sold to a developer who was planning 14 hilltop homes here.
02:33One of these, a barn, was bought by Piers and Emma four years ago.
02:38It's also home to Florence and Edie.
02:41I fell in love in this house as soon as I came up the drive, and I didn't envisage us ever moving again.
02:49But, very quickly, everything started to unravel.
02:52Instead of replacing the folly castle with five homes as planned, the developer put it up for sale.
02:58That, for us, was really difficult because, potentially, somebody could build 60 homes. There's big fields around.
03:06And then I found all the legal issues where we didn't actually have a right to water, sewage, internet.
03:12It could make our house worth nothing.
03:14So, they bought the castle along with the service deeds.
03:18They want to replace it with a befitting landmark.
03:21I try not to tell people what we're doing, because it sounds very grand and eccentric.
03:27I think people will think I'm a bit of a dick.
03:29So, they won't take me very seriously.
03:32Wow.
03:33What a take that is.
03:34What a riff.
03:35It's a 1920s castle.
03:36What's wrong with that?
03:37Look, some very nice 1920s panelling disappearing out of the building.
03:41Wow.
03:42Huh.
03:43This is something else.
03:44Everything possible is being salvaged here.
03:46And while some areas are mighty fine, there are others that are decrepit.
03:49This place is damp, cold, miserable.
03:54Very much out-of-date.
03:55Very much out-of-date.
03:56Very much out-of-date.
03:57But that's not an excuse to tear this piece of history down.
03:58This place is damp.
03:59Cold, miserable.
04:00Very much out-of-date.
04:01But that's not an excuse to tear this piece of history down.
04:02This place is damp.
04:03Cold, miserable.
04:04Very much out-of-date.
04:07I'm really torn.
04:08Because I'm a building conservationist, and I can see here, it's the end of the building.
04:12But that's not an excuse to tear it down, but that's not an excuse to tear this piece
04:14of history down.
04:19Hello.
04:20Hi.
04:25Amazing house you have.
04:28I'm really torn.
04:31you have I'm really torn because I'm a building conservationist and I can see
04:37here there are bits of this building which are just very low grade and then
04:41there are bits which are very high quality well I've been having
04:43conversations with people on and off for a year and a half to see how much we
04:46could salvage anything we can reuse we will reuse yeah tell me what are you
04:51gonna build we are gonna build a modern take on a castle which will be a family
04:58home so you are knocking down a fake castle to build a fake castle no it's
05:0421st century castle for us it is really trying to reimagine what what a castle
05:10could be and and actually build something that's not a folly anymore that actually
05:14was designed from the ground up to have that structure in that shape and it will
05:18have a tower to replicate what people see every day and we have a nod to the
05:22turrets and to a mate a 21st century castle yeah wow wow
05:29this two-year project could be the first listed castle in a century the old folly
05:35will make way for a very big dig hollowing out this hillside at different levels to
05:40install a maze of footings for a 30 meter long structure and a very large
05:45basement under the tower they'll build using insulated woodcrete blocks made
05:52from recycled shredded timber mixed with cement that'll be filled with reinforced
05:57concrete an extraordinary 25,000 blocks will be needed to build from ground
06:04floor to the first floor bedroom wing to the five floors of the tower to be
06:08topped with a castellated roof terrace a mighty stone facade will encase the
06:15walls counted here and there by vertical timber cladding there'll be stone
06:19mullions and lintels recessed windows and arrow slit openings so quite a few
06:25castle accoutrements including a long barbican entrance with a beamed open roof
06:33of rectangular murder holes lovely the great front door will lead to a double
06:39height hallway to impress royalty flanked by a glazed stone colonnade and a moat on one
06:44side and an inner courtyard with a pond on the other there'll be a basement pool a
06:52very large garage utility rooms and outdoor kitchen in the lodger and a two
06:57bedroom apartment the first floor will be for sleeping where the children's wing
07:02and a main bedroom in the tower the second floor will contain the kitchen
07:07diner the third the living room and the fourth will be the roof terrace so eight
07:13bedrooms a total floor space of nearly 1100 square meters oh and a separate lakeside office it'll be
07:20the biggest self-build i've ever seen maybe fit for a king i didn't appreciate how big it's going to be
07:27for me we're building the architect's picture and that is what we've sold to our community and that's
07:34what i think will look right here okay if we go up you'll be actually be able to see it
07:38it's bonkers what's more piers and emma are taking on another building that the developer left we're going
07:44to use it as a test site because it will be ahead of the castle well surely they're going to need a
07:50fortune for all this what in your head then have you priced it at about 200 pounds a square foot so
07:57across 11 000 square feet that's nearly two million pounds that came to 2.2 million not two million
08:03maybe closer yeah what happens if it goes you know if it goes over those are sleepless nights type
08:08conversations where's the money come from i sold the business and um got some mortgages we have some
08:14properties and this will be sold are you not torn oh completely torn but we wouldn't be able to
08:22do the build without selling here i'm addicted to risk and i think emma has bought into that now
08:28it will be largely up to piers though to juggle this risky venture alongside his five startup
08:38businesses one of which in london is a tech company piers began a business at 15. he won young
08:46entrepreneur of the year at 31 and then sold a company for an undisclosed sum so down here we have
08:54the geek room where we have everything that we need to make in a prototyping stage we're making
09:00a light switch and a plug socket you can replace into any home so if you needed a normal power socket
09:06you'd plug that in but likewise you could also just have it straight to a usb connector
09:14we've got rid of job titles we've got coding cosmonaut we've got an imagineer
09:20so i am actually just a dreamer seems about right piers making a profit here remains a pipe dream
09:31so my view on money is money is like energy building the castle or developing this business
09:36i'm actually making an impact and and long term that would be my legacy it won't be having a load
09:41of money in the bank account a surfeit of cash isn't a problem piers will likely be facing
09:48two months in the project is already in peril
09:57the old place should have been demolished by now but there's been a dangerous discovery
10:04it's full of asbestos so it does look like a space landing at the moment there's people in hazmat suits
10:11and sealed rooms and it looks like a big operation there's probably about a hundred thousand pounds
10:17the cost there that we just haven't foreseen i just want the building down i feel like it's just
10:24a weight around my neck the burdensome folly takes another month before it's deemed safe
10:30then at last digger day
10:36today is amazing because i feel as though we're actually doing something proactive so it's a good day
10:48it'll take three days to raise this to the ground but piers is working in london
10:53missing the spectacle so daddy would be excited to see this wouldn't he oh
11:04the destruction is breathtaking and the carving up of the site just as brutal
11:11after 10 weeks there's a new peak in warwickshire
11:14i built that hill the local workforce is 10 to 15 strong that's a staggering 10 grand a week minimum
11:24our bills each month are already in eye-wateringly large figures we're talking sort of 50 and 100
11:32000 pounds each month but at the end of the day we have to see it through to the end we'll
11:37we'll manage we'll cope it will be good
11:51peers and emma have dug for foundations in readiness to crown this hill with a 21st century castle
11:58they're seven months into a two-year schedule we're going to go down another meter from where we are now
12:04so it'll be from here good grief there's a castle-sized hole but not much else it's not quite going
12:11to plan yeah how far behind are you about 20 000 uh ton of soil behind one day we had 17 machines here
12:20and it's still behind everything's just taken a lot longer than we were expecting total cost about 180
12:28it's a lot to take down a building where does that money come from everything you see we we've
12:33paid for in cash literally but we're just now talking a bit more with the bank yeah peers and
12:39emma are also hoping to contain their budget by building with these blocks made from recycled
12:44wood fiber and cement they're trialing them on the test building next door when you think about a castle
12:50it used to be meter thick stone walls and so actually this is as close as we can get to something
12:55but actually give us some thermal mass and you pour concrete in the middle once it gets to about two
12:59meters but it comes with insulation already installed in it yeah it's very straightforward
13:04therefore cheaper yeah that's our hope yes using simple stackable blocks seems like a clever idea
13:13but just a few days after my visit that battle tactic falls foul of events
13:19the woodcrete block supplier has gone into administration all our plans our layout everything
13:25was all measured to the size of these blocks so if we're changing that then the hundreds of thousands
13:29of pounds i spent on planning process reports all of that is potentially wasted piers is talking to a new
13:39block supplier in the hope that their product is similarly sized piers does however have enough blocks on
13:48site for the test house two months later the ground floor is up but next door at the castle they're only
13:55on their first big concrete pool with one of the uk's biggest pumps it's a big day to put a newbie in charge
14:05but piers has been unhappy with the progress so that's what he's done
14:11this is matt his new site manager promoted from within the ranks
14:15i've never built a house before only ever put in the foundations and move on
14:22i've never seen a cv or anything i think he's trained as a tyler originally but i don't know
14:26what matt did before he built stuff i've moved from a ground worker right up to project manager
14:33in a weekend it's crazy isn't it i will always go my gut instinct and i think i think he's got the
14:39right attitude for this project i hope so because this basement needs 15 lorry loads of concrete how
14:49much are you carrying six this is my biggest paw it's really daunting okay sound there's a lot to take
14:58on and i just hope it's gonna go well panicking for no reason 90 cubic meters of concrete are being
15:08pumped into wooden shuttering that matt has signed off now i'm gonna get nervy you're looking at a
15:14meter and a half deep of concrete leaning on against it just making sure it doesn't fail
15:21that's always my worry no matter how much you do you've always got a chance isn't you
15:26after the fifth lorry matt is feeling more confident so it's going well really well the
15:32worst bit's over none of the timber work has moved 90 cubic meters wow so i think we said for the whole
15:39build it's about 300 cubic meters no way more okay so hs2 is not getting any concrete today no no
15:45we've put that on hold matt got off to a good start but three months later they're behind again
15:54thanks to the weather and the difficulty of getting hold of more wood creek blocks their new supplier is
16:00in europe we expected them to arrive just a week after order from italy but actually because they were
16:05stuck in customs uh it ended up being 12 week wait they're going to need 25 000 of these blocks costing
16:13nearly 200 000 pounds they're actually cheaper than the uk blocks and so similar that a redesign isn't
16:21an issue but getting the stock is challenging i'm about to run out with no more to come then we're paying
16:29for people to stand around it's not good these walls are just for the tower basement the rest of the castle
16:37stretches out 30 meters at ground level it'll sit on this maze of trench foundations
16:43which will need another 22 lorry loads of concrete
16:49go into you a bit dollar knock that bank in but on this exposed wet hill
16:56the trenches are crumbling and then the rain starts you're on it there
17:02these collapses can compromise the strength of these footings horrible horrible weather
17:15every time it caves in we have to get in there and dig it back out it's not good
17:20all these cavings all these little bit adds up the worst case scenario is your foundation trenches that is
17:32sort of doubled in size which means it just costs twice as much more in concrete to fill it over eight
17:39hours the collapses add up to two extra lorries and six and a half thousand pounds of costs
17:45today's just been really wet really muddy just really
17:48inevitably costs go north they've spent 1.1 million on groundworks twice what was forecast
18:01covid rising material costs and complexity are to blame
18:0518 months in the test house is a successful shell but the castle is not
18:16good grief is i didn't quite appreciate the
18:20the sense of it being this huge civil engineering project yeah and and what you didn't get to see
18:26is actually the two meters of concrete that sits below this and the amount of steel that's gone
18:31how have you coped with the that kind of roller coaster nature of it all i think it's a lack of
18:37understanding about what's happening next and so actually most of it's a surprise i love your
18:43understanding it looked fine on paper i am transfixed by piers he's a million over his 2.2 million budget
18:51i'd be ruined but he's in his happy place i'm like a dog with a bone i'll finish it i'll spend the rest
18:58of my life paying for it yeah piers may think he can borrow his way out of trouble but the banks
19:06reject his mortgage application instead he has to sell the london flat he uses for work
19:13if you're thinking about the castle i mean it's 200 grand a month it's massive
19:18i wouldn't be able to pay the builders without this selling this month so it's very lucky it's
19:25all happening at the same time even so piers is still financially short so he goes to the bank of
19:33mum hello darling for a six-figure sum thank you sweetie listen not to put too fine a point on it
19:43you know i've given you my pension fund when do you think you'll sort of think about returning that
19:51hopefully finish the build next year then mortgage the house and then i'll settle with you including
19:56the interest we've agreed to pay i think any parent would do anything for their kid but it's um
20:02obviously asking them to sort of gamble their future on a project i'm doing which i don't really
20:07need to do is quite a big ask but then trisha has invested in piers before and made a healthy profit
20:15i don't feel as though it's something that i'm i'm really um risking risking yes but then i worry that
20:24you might just be overdoing it lots of vitamins yes i would say he's more vulnerable at the moment
20:35than he's ever been in his life i sometimes worry that he's going to actually cause himself
20:41health issues because how much pressure can one person take
20:48heavy lies the crown for piers but then given the scale of the project maybe this was inevitable
20:55the idea is nuts the the project is complex it's on top of a hill difficult to get to goodness me why
21:04pursue such a folly of an idea this is warwick castle not far from the site a suitable location
21:13to meet john borderman the architect behind piers and emma's 21st century castle i hoped he might shed
21:20light as to why its design needed to be so big and complex we really did have to make a statement
21:26for a community they've been used to this eye-catching monument this house on the hill and to take that
21:31away is a huge thing yeah so that was debris from the planners and the clients was to eliminate every
21:38disney element so we've taken all the clues from everything you see here your protocols for example
21:45through quite a celebrated beam entrance here yes the indents of the roof parapet which is obviously
21:51mirroring the crenellations that you can see in and around the castle and all the recesses where the
21:55arrow slots are we've sort of mirrored that we've been playful with the design strikes me also one thing
22:01you've done here is you've tried to shape the building to fit the contour so it steps absolutely
22:05makes it more complex to build but it does so in a way that a castle like this does the design seems
22:11absolutely appropriate for the site taught and lean the simple facts are it can't be compromised
22:17handling constraints exactly conditions surrounding it absolutely piers is fully aware of that and i hope
22:23obviously if anybody can deliver this piers can well it's piers yeah absolutely
22:37castle construction continues on a cycle flocks go up voids are filled with concrete
22:44and it's all repeated for 12 months it's super slow because piers has prioritized finishing his test
22:52house next door two years in and he can sell it which he does for two and a half million quid
23:00it was a relief selling it yes yeah it was good and and also i think we've got good neighbors
23:05it's a big chunk of cash which i can start to repurpose into this site
23:10two and a half million is useful cash but including the land piers spent three million on the test house
23:16so he's made a 500 000 pound loss but there again two and a half million is useful cash
23:22so eight months later there's real progress the external garages are complete the ground floor
23:30is up the tower is at second floor level and the defensive bulk of this building is beginning to take
23:36shape so this is the bridge crossing the moat so it's a fish pond i hope it should look quite good
23:44when it's all done and not so shit over this way we've got our outdoor courtyard so we have a pond in
23:53the middle everything is bigger than i thought it would be i'm very bad with size it is much much bigger
24:00than anybody imagined these metal trays are lying in wait for yet more concrete to arrive they'll
24:06become roofs in between them runs the defensive approach to the front door this is an open walkway
24:13that leads to the front door with these sort of cast beams over the tops quite carcerly we explored
24:18having them pre-made for us but it was very expensive so they're gonna make our own it's just
24:23something that i've never done before so we're a little bit cautious with it
24:30that's attempting these flying concrete beams
24:36holding well he's also pouring the concrete roofs and surprisingly three walls underneath
24:43we drilled some holes in the deck and the idea is the concrete would just flow down and fill the
24:47walls at the same time can't find that hole now the problem is though that once the concrete's
24:51on top you can't find the holes oh so we're having to sort of scratch around and find them
24:56keep searching everywhere foolish potentially i gotta find the next one now this is a client driven
25:02can we go a little bit quicker please oh i found one matt's bravery is heroic but not every
25:09experimental idea is going to work as pierce should know he and emma are now eight months behind
25:15morning darling hi morning is she calling darling
25:23how are you sweetie
25:26while half the team pours concrete they are helping to build the tower
25:32you're nice and strong i've never done this before but i'm not afraid of a challenge and i love a bit
25:37of physical labor so you take one of those wrap it round yeah each block is reinforced with steel bars
25:45wired together pull the hook the concrete will be poured into the void later we do it on every
25:52single one everyone every single one gosh okay got it my role today is probably more moral support
25:59than actually building support i think i'm more of a liability every penny counts
26:04yeah yeah exactly there are some 20 kilometers of rebar to fit into the walls and wire together
26:13the blocks slide over the bars and the process repeats with plenty of tailoring of cutting of blocks to
26:20the right shape for piers and emma it's an eye-opener the block work was sold to us as a bit of a lego
26:30and being here today it clearly is not lego actually doing it is much easier to understand why it's so
26:37labor-intensive and time-consuming and therefore painful payroll costs are around half a million a
26:45year piers has already borrowed two million from private lenders at a 12 percent interest rate even
26:51then he doesn't have enough to finish look at the size of the project it absolutely eats through
26:57any money so we talk now in sort of weeks and months of how we're sustaining things the pressure's on
27:02all the time it's very difficult to get a break from it
27:16perhaps the largest problem with piers and emma's castle now nearly three years on is the sheer
27:22quantity of materials needed there's 183 pieces of steel throughout the castle
27:27this is definitely commercial grade construction with the amount of steel work in this surrounding
27:32the steel there are 25 000 blocks oh and then there's the stone cladding not great big blocks of stone but
27:4114 000 fake tiles i never saw it really in person until until we ordered it all uh so yeah i'm really
27:50pleased it's a bit smaller than i would have liked but i think it looks great
27:55we're about quarter of a million pounds just for the cladding i think from running my own companies
28:01the challenges are the same so i don't really think about the size of the number it's just more about
28:05how do i afford it or find the money
28:11in the following six months as the tower and the bedroom wing grow
28:15so do the invoices although there are at least rooms to see you guys happy happy happy one member
28:25of the team lee is making the first partitions i'd describe it as a maze very big lots of different
28:34doors isn't there levels those levels grow inexorably rising through christmas and the new year
28:42with spring around the corner they finish the castle's shell
28:51three and a half years in it looks like a multi-story car park but the approach
28:59that does pack a punch well this is exciting if also a little threatening
29:06this is a bit like that space between the barbican the front entrance to a castle you know the little
29:10gatehouse and the main entrance where effectively you're trapped the portcullis comes down there
29:17and this one remains shut and you don't know if there are spotters up there with crossbows and you're
29:23being sussed out before you're then allowed through the front door mercifully i'm still alive
29:29oh wow this is something of a grand entrance hello afternoon yeah good to see you i made you through the
29:39two portcullises you know into this which is it's really exciting this space well we haven't put the
29:46crocs in yet are the castle references somehow becoming more more resonant yeah i think they're
29:54really important because it's not particularly a pretty building it's those references that make
29:58it relevant it's going to be pretty though isn't it yeah it will be it will be eventually yeah
30:04but castles aren't necessarily pretty buildings no no no they're statements and they're purposeful
30:09yeah and i think that's what this will be is it giving you anything back yet or is it still sucking
30:13it's a huge um drain it does feel like groundhog day and you've chosen to
30:19to go large yeah i get size wrong and i've got it wrong so this is where the staircase is going
30:27to be yeah yeah good thank you lead the way this tower is already elevated on a hill so which
30:35fly forget which floor we're on now not the top floor no no so each floor feels so much higher and
30:41exposed become as a bit more precarious as we go up yes there's still an exhausting amount to do
30:48you see north to birmingham yes south to um south pole yeah how many weeks to go then do you
30:55reckon about 30 weeks this is the speed part this is where we bring all the trades in what makes
31:00me think i've heard that before yeah go on give me the figure total budget i think we'll be over seven
31:07by the time we finished that's seven million yeah bloody hellfire that sum does at least include
31:15the 1.4 million they paid for the plot where does that all come from pierce sorry i it's borrowing
31:22i sold my car we've sold a house we had down in in in the south coast we're selling a commercial
31:28building so anything we can it's going yes it's our everything yes peers it seems will never concede
31:36defeat but i wonder if emma feels the same is it hard to let go of things yes definitely everything's
31:46gone but not finishing this would be a bigger heart wrench the personal investment of time and energy
31:54and faith and belief exactly and you know we've absolutely um wedded ourselves to here we've got ashes
32:02of family members in the woodland we've planted this is where we will grow old it's where our
32:06children will get married we hope yeah but i think that's also that this will leave a legacy won't it
32:12we will leave this monument yeah yeah bye
32:19five months later pierre's 30-week schedule has been blown to smithereens the castle is however
32:25a buzz with 25 workers the sparks are in and a team of plasterers crucially the window fitters are
32:34here too joe is in charge it's unbelievable i mean you can see the build from a few mile out before you
32:41even arrive it's quite daunting to be honest 81 windows costing 310 000 pounds are due to go in over
32:48four weeks starting at four weeks starting at the top of the tower
32:53today they're installing the chunkier glazing too big to be carried upstairs
32:59so they've hired the biggest telehandler matt could find
33:04it's a model that jack the driver hasn't operated before
33:10i don't know how bumpy it is not even the fittest have worked at this height
33:15feel sorry for the young lad getting roped into operating machinery lovely bit of driving how old
33:21do you reckon he is 25. all right i'm just trying to ease it that's all all right they're not even sure
33:27they'll be able to reach the 60 meter high opening how's that look this way
33:37ever so slowly jack hoists 8 000 pounds worth of piers and emmert glass past three floors
33:44this is gonna hit that it's probably gonna hit that but i might be able to pull the stillage
33:50yeah yeah it just needs to come a bit closer towards that stop moving around i think that's
33:55limit it's not moving is it is that it though yeah the reach is too short to push the whole stillage
34:01in let's bring it back out oh oh slow man slow you got another two meters they creep the machine
34:10forwards and try again we're gonna have to trample it it's very tense at the minute because i don't
34:15want to break the glass we are at the machine's limit
34:23all right matt turn not to do that guys we can feel it on the sensors yeah drop down again
34:29they try twice more oh until finally on the fourth go miles better that we should be able to get that
34:39yeah now come in
34:39yeah glass in tense how did i feel not good there's no rule book on getting a window to a four
34:57story castle you know one two three but we got there in the end and we got it in safely so i'm happy
35:03what's got next to it the glazing as you might expect is slow it's tricky and some of the openings
35:09it turns out are too small the fitters are having to wait while sills get shaved down
35:18i think if i'm really honest it's probably where my lack of experience is starting to show
35:23i feel responsible it's ultimately it's more money for peers isn't it it's giving me the opportunity and
35:28you don't want to blow it so that's the that's the weight of it some openings just aren't ready
35:35so the fitters leave sooner than expected having put in just 14 windows delays of course mean more
35:43money the idea that this will become a family home for piers and emma is already hanging in the balance
35:49so at the moment i'm at uh 353 invoices we can't afford not to finish now
35:55not only is the barn up for sale so is the castle
36:04this is the castle so as part of our agreement with the people who are lending us money at
36:07the moment is we have to market the property commercially now we're hoping we can remortgage
36:12or or find another way of putting some debt on the building and then that will allow us to live there but
36:17the house could be purchased if someone wanted to come along and buy it the risk is we all have
36:22had to sell the dream barn and the dream build and we won't be able to live in the location that we
36:28love so it is a tightrope that we're walking but with the hope that it will all come right in the end
36:36you can't sell living items on ebay can you otherwise you'd be on there for sale yeah exactly
36:42you're on only fans
36:49to preserve their hilltop hamlet give the locals a landmark that would erase the ghost of the folly
37:03they took down and possibly for the sheer hell of it piers and emma decided to rebuild a castle
37:09near stratford upon avon i'm keen to see it soon in case it's sold from under them
37:16you know i've been thinking the last time a castle was built in the uk i think was castle
37:22drogo it was 100 years ago took 20 years to build and i'm not going to wait that long besides which
37:28the question is not is this project finished because i don't think castles really ever are
37:34the question is more to do with its identity does this building really say castle
37:41four years have passed in its making twice the time they forecast oh well that that is really powerful
37:53it exudes strength it's a war fully formed in silhouette it is a forbidding fortification
38:08it qualifies it's got castellations and arrow slits and everything should have worn my armor today
38:16the site is ancient the building in parts resembles the acropolis and although not complete it is monumental
38:31that is one hell of an entrance i'm uh i'm gonna look for the moat though
38:38120 meters above sea level it looks quite the citadel this is some walk around this building
38:47it's like walking around a castle hey hello home owners well i should say happy castle owners
38:56so good to see you you well i am how are you yeah really well thank you good piers good to see you
39:01well yeah this is fantastic it's quite powerful it's got real presence this thing yeah certainly a
39:10monument that i think you can see from all around like the old building was that cladding by the way which
39:16is very persuasive it's great but what's beautiful is the is the distinction between the hard-edged
39:21reveals of all the openings and where you put the stone where suddenly that corner is a little more
39:26crumbly it's a bit more textured you pleased very pleased yeah because it is quite a stark building but
39:31the stonework ironically actually softens it well you both seem very chipper are you putting on a brave face
39:36or what uh i i feel like i'm putting on a brave face why it's immense i've understood how much
39:42i've bitten off also a little bit of ocd in me struggles with the process but i can see the
39:48finish line now so i think that's my motivation is this difficult to manage i mean is piers difficult
39:54to manage on occasions but we're still here we're still going and i love it i'm absolutely oh okay
40:00so you can blame up a little yeah i come in just having a wander around when all the builders have left
40:06and just quietly taking it in that's still with you very much so oh that's good news yeah he's really
40:12enjoying it so um we should maybe have a look inside outside this place has an appropriate raw brutal
40:20presence is it equally thrilling inside oh moat well that's strong it's lined it's ready for water
40:32the square columns are yet to be faced in stone with that will come more drama extraordinary
40:40across the moat is the glazed grand hall i love this place because it's sort of it's the meeting
40:46point the sort of nexus this liminal half in half out space will connect through great slices of glass
40:53the moat the courtyard pool and that powerful approach to the front door as a piece of architecture
41:00it promises great beauty yeah so don't stuff it up okay
41:07a floating oak staircase will arrive one day to take you to five bedrooms all is yet undressed
41:17above which floats the tower's second floor oh heavens
41:21where there's real progress this is so good to see is it all working yes absolutely
41:30peers and emma's locally made kitchen is posh and charming much like the driving force behind this place
41:38who designed the kitchen
41:45okay are you a cook no are you a cook yeah you are yeah my father was a chef and i like i like making
41:52things as you can tell like castles and pies yeah technically there's two five kitchens
41:59oh hang on a minute what sorry five the building yeah because we've got the flat we've got the office
42:07outside we've got the gym we don't always get on so you know if we can each have one kitchen that'll be
42:13fine won't it this is a world of stratospheric ambition beyond my comfort zone
42:22the next floor up is the sitting room like an eerie oh yeah lovely you look out and you're in a
42:32spaceship hovering thousands of feet above the earth what an extraordinary thing to build i can
42:38understand why you want to come this high i am seduced with tower living and this one is 21st century
42:45it'll run on renewable energy what's that little black box thing what's that do that's our little
42:50intelligent light switch that i've been building for the last four years what's so special about
42:54a light switch though it's just on or off isn't it well i wanted something that brought all our
42:59technology together so from our heating our cooling our batteries our solar our wind and sort of create
43:04an interface that i could then control within the house is that going to pay for all of this is that
43:08the idea if it goes the way i want it to go definitely well for piers's sake i hope it works out
43:15there is much castle yet to build but let's not forget he's also built this the test house a high
43:22tech three-bedroom luxurious mini manor which hints towards what the castle might be if they can finish
43:30it it's taken a lot has it it's demanded a huge huge amount we've put everything into this we've put
43:37our hearts souls you know everything's in um financially as well how much have you spent piers
43:44just to the nearest like million uh about five and how much do you think you're going to spend
43:49probably another one okay so all in for six million is that excluding the site and so forth yeah it's a
43:56whole lot of cash how much of it is um borrowing about half about half also a big amount yeah huge amount
44:02what's the percentage chance of you keeping hold of this project i think it's probably 50 50. we're
44:07in the process of refinancing and then that should see us through to either a sale or us being able to
44:13move in i'm hoping in the meantime the businesses that we're building are growing and this becomes
44:18part of that story is there a chance you could lose both homes this one and the one you're living in
44:24well there's always a small risk i'll make sure we wake up tomorrow work hard fight hard and we'll try
44:31and get the outcome we want does regret ever enter your lives do you i i feel like we've built something
44:37quite substantial this i think will be here in 500 years i think we have definitely done the right
44:43building for the right environment in the right you've done right by the place yeah
44:48i really hope after all their toil this building rewards them and they get to live here
44:54well i honestly think this is going to be a great piece of exciting architecture truly outstanding and
45:07i mean that in every sense of the word on this hill now you might disagree you might think that
45:12it's an extravagant folly or a piece of hubris or one man's monument to himself or or to be fair to
45:21piers and to emma a castle of entrepreneurial dreams of engineering hope of experimentation innovation
45:33all of which of course has been paid for by piers and emma and all that cash that they borrowed
45:40whatever you think i don't think i can help you here though because i'm going to have to come back i'm
45:46going to have to come and revisit this building when it's truly properly finished
45:54and when it has proved it worse
46:0510 years ago in the wirral stewart and rosie ripped out their 1960s bungalow it's going to be
46:10timber clad it's a big bold shape the drastic change left the neighbors unhappy i hate it
46:15i hate it and our hapless owners doubting themselves i'm not 100 sure about it if i'm honest the house
46:22was left nowhere near finished oh own plant toilet that's nice so nine years on i'm back this is a
46:28completely new room
46:36so
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