Saving Country Houses with Penelope Keith continues with Season 1 Episode 2 as Pitchford Hall returns to its original family after 25 years of neglect. The episode follows the start of an ambitious and emotional restoration project, breathing new life into this historic country house. Plus, plans move forward for an unusual and modern addition—a sauna at Chavenage—highlighting the balance between heritage preservation and contemporary living in Saving Country Houses with Penelope Keith.
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00:02The green, rolling landscapes of Great Britain
00:05are home to the jewels in the country's rich heritage.
00:13Our country houses.
00:19Celebrated across the world for their design and decoration.
00:27Their crowns and gardens.
00:33And their centuries of history.
00:40There was a time when owning a grand country house meant a great deal.
00:45These estates were the keys to fortune and power.
00:50But today's country house owners live in a very different world.
00:54The sound of petrol!
00:56No, no, no, wrong way!
00:58These houses are still the grandest in the land.
01:02This is Oliver Cromwell's room.
01:03But the challenge of keeping them in one piece has never been greater.
01:07Spiral of decay, I don't like the sound of that.
01:10Ballpark figures, 350,000.
01:12Gulp.
01:13Gotta get these lights fixed.
01:14Today's owners are becoming ever more imaginative.
01:18Bon Appetit.
01:19We're finding ways...
01:21I'm literally ankle deep right now.
01:23To keep the money coming in.
01:25These estates aren't designed to make money, they're designed to eat money.
01:29To keep the ceiling from falling down.
01:31And I turn the corner into here.
01:34Oh my goodness.
01:35We are collecting leaks, as you can see.
01:37And stop their fears becoming a reality.
01:40I think of all the ancestors going back 900 years.
01:44If we fail, it's on our watch.
01:47Of course, being to the manor born has always been a privilege.
01:51But today's owners face challenges as never before.
01:55So, they're rolling up their sleeves and putting their heart and soul into brave new ventures.
02:01The question is, how do you save a country house and see it prosper in the modern world?
02:29In this series, we're getting a glimpse inside the world of nine country houses.
02:34Their histories stretch back centuries.
02:37And they all boast a fascinating selection of visitors who've stayed over the years.
02:43One in particular caught my eye.
02:46A young princess named Victoria.
02:52Aged 13, she paid a visit to our first house today, a few years before she became Queen Victoria.
03:01In her diary, she describes the house as curious-looking but very comfortable, striped black and white, and in the
03:10shape of a cottage.
03:12Now, this house is almost 200 feet wide.
03:15It is certainly quite a cottage.
03:20In 1832, Victoria and her mother were on a royal progress, introducing the princess to parts of her future kingdom.
03:30In Shropshire, they spent a week as the honoured guests of Pitchford Hall.
03:38This is a room she stayed in.
03:40We always understood her mother hogged the fireplace, and poor Victoria, this 13-year-old princess, was in this side,
03:50in a kind of colder part of the room.
03:54Luckily for Victoria, she had the magnificence of Pitchford's exterior to keep her spirits up.
04:02The history of this estate stretches back to the Doomsday Book.
04:07And what we see today is one of the finest half-timbered Elizabethan buildings in existence.
04:15It's also a house that goes on.
04:19And on.
04:23And on.
04:29You can only imagine how fun and interesting it was living here.
04:35I mean, I feel incredibly lucky.
04:37I mean, what an idyllic childhood.
04:40Rowena Coldhurst's ancestors have been part of Pitchford Hall's history since it was built in the 16th century.
04:47We've got the whole line-up of all the different families that have had ownership or custodianship of the house.
04:57Rowena's husband, James, is now equally passionate about a house that's full of historic secrets.
05:05Because it's a priest hole, it's concealed.
05:10There's a little latch that you just push here.
05:14And then it opens up.
05:19You'll see there is a trap door, which would normally be down.
05:27You've got plenty of space.
05:29You know, you could fit three or four priests.
05:36Built during the religious tension of Tudor England, this part of the hall includes a secret hideaway.
05:43Should a persecuted Catholic priest require it?
05:47This is an exit which most priest holes don't have.
05:50But this does make it one of the more unique priest holes in the UK.
05:55You know, you could easily be in a priest hole for a week or more.
06:00That's why I think actually having a window and an exit route would be quite reassuring.
06:05For why we've got a cupboard with 20 drawers, we are genuinely really confused.
06:13Some of them are like spice drawers.
06:16There's no, there's no smells.
06:18I don't, I don't, I don't think it's spice.
06:20So we are, we are genuinely really confused what these drawers are for
06:24and why they're down at priest hole.
06:26So many mysteries at Pitchford and all we can do is put theories to, to people.
06:32We're constantly searching for ideas.
06:36Whilst James contemplates mystery drawers, Rowena and son Edward are heading through the wooded grounds
06:43to the unglamorous spot which gave Pitchford its name.
06:47We're off to the pitch well.
06:50It's a well that contains this black, tar-like substance.
06:57OK, don't you see if you, I'm sure you can find some.
07:04So this is the pitch well.
07:06So this is where the pitch or natural bitumen literally oozes out of the ground.
07:12It's a natural phenomenon and it's the reason that Pitchford has its name
07:17because there's the pitch here and then the ford just over there.
07:22So I'm using the stick to kind of probe for some pitch.
07:28Oh yeah, I can see some.
07:29Oh yeah, brilliant.
07:31So sticky.
07:33Pretty hard to get out.
07:37Yeah, that's, that's quite a bit.
07:43So this, this here is the pitch and it's sort of got that like shiny, it feels kind of like
07:52tar and I guess looks like it.
07:55It smells just like tar on the road.
07:58Yeah, it smells like oil.
08:00Amazingly, in the olden days, there was a thing called Betton's Fluid, which is made out of pitch in the
08:05Betton family or a Shropshire family.
08:07So they very likely used our pitch, but it was meant to cure all known ailments, which I find quite
08:14amusing.
08:15But clearly, I don't think it did them the world of good.
08:18Just don't touch anything, please.
08:22In fact, the use of pitch or mineral tar goes back thousands of years and was probably first used in
08:29Britain by the Romans, including as a treatment for leprosy and psoriasis.
08:35It is useful, but very hard to wash off.
08:39As well as its medical applications, this natural bitumen was used for centuries to waterproof and protect exposed timbers on
08:49houses,
08:50including Pitchford Hall itself.
08:52So these sections where you've got black, you know, tar or what we call pitch,
08:59and nowadays they'd use a kind of silica, but in those days we had pitch in the ground coming up
09:05from a well.
09:07So not surprisingly, you would use it on the building.
09:10Sadly, a lot of the timbers have seen better days and when I look at that timber and that timber
09:16and that timber,
09:16I know they're going to have to be restored and we're just going to work our way through.
09:26And a man who knows his way around Pitchford's timbers better than anyone is local artisan builder Nick Tatchell.
09:36A lot of what I do is lime plastering, lime mortar, oak frame repair, and there's plenty of it here.
09:45The orangery was restored by us in 2018, 2019.
09:52I had to do that last year. The weather vane fell off.
09:56It was made of lead and it bounced down the roof like a wrecking ball.
10:00So that's a new one up there now.
10:03I've got a list, a really long list of things I have to do and then lots of things get
10:08put onto that list.
10:13But on the south lawn, there is one small issue that is now top of the to-do list.
10:20And then we had these sinkholes.
10:23They were filled in and then they've reappeared bigger than before.
10:28That's high priority, unfortunately.
10:32Nick believes the sinkholes are caused by a network of underground tunnels running all around the hall.
10:41There's a tunnel there.
10:42It's only about three feet wide by about four feet high.
10:46And the sinkholes suggest there's a problem far along the tunnel,
10:51which someone is going to have to investigate.
10:55It's a hands and knees job.
10:57It's absolutely full of eels.
10:59Great big 12-inch sand eels.
11:05But the problem at Pitchford is that the to-do list is enormous.
11:11This is the servants' wing.
11:13This is going to be an issue to fix and the expensive issue.
11:18In this part of the house, eight large bedrooms were once given to Pitchford's live-in servants.
11:25Today, there are no servants and a whole wing of the building lies empty.
11:31You know, what to do next in a prioritisation?
11:34Do we do the derriot wing part of the hall?
11:39Do we do the triage?
11:40It's a listed building, it needs restoration.
11:43There's a real prioritisation discussion between us, you know, almost on a daily basis.
12:01When it comes to running a country house, many centuries of ownership is no guarantee of a secure future.
12:08The latest generation of owners are facing a host of challenges that their ancestors couldn't have dreamed of.
12:15They are having to work harder than ever before to find success and security.
12:21So, perhaps it's a gift when time is on your side.
12:28We're returning to the Cotswolds and the new young custodian of Chavenage.
12:35My name is James Lowsley-Williams. I am the proud, I guess, inheritor of Chavenage Estate.
12:49It's definitely fair to say we're asset rich. I can't sit here and say I'm asset poor, for sure.
12:54You know, I'm sitting on a lot of money's worth of assets.
13:00When you look round and you walk round and you go,
13:02bloody hell, I own all this. That is, it's quite something.
13:09I am unbelievably lucky, and the whole family is, to be able to have Chavenage as a place where we
13:15can call home.
13:18But with that comes the pressure of, yes, I own this, but I've actually got to sustain it,
13:23and there's two different things.
13:26You're signing up for a lifelong work of carrying this estate forward.
13:35James took over the running of Chavenage two years ago,
13:39since when his girlfriend of the time, Emma, has become his wife.
13:44I mean, look at us with our little desks.
13:47It feels like a sort of very, um, yeah, very grown-up thing to be doing.
13:52The new Mr and Mrs Lowsley-Williams are the sixth generation of the family
13:58to look after the estate's 2,000 acres.
14:02Ballpark figures, just to run the house and the surrounding buildings, 350,000.
14:08Gulp. Per year.
14:09These estates aren't designed to make money, they're designed to eat money.
14:13And also, you earn no money, because every bit of money you're putting back onto the estate.
14:19From my point of view, you kind of think,
14:21my gosh, how have I ended up in this position?
14:23I sort of fell in love with this guy in Bath, and now I'm here,
14:27and we're trying to take on this enormous estate and all these different businesses.
14:31And you sort of are just winging it, and you just hope that something works.
14:37This summer, hopes are being pinned on a new venture
14:41that will see Windmill Field turned into a Cotswold sauna experience.
14:47A luxury sauna pod is being delivered soon,
14:51so James is turning to a trusted helper for the final planning.
14:56Right now, Big Al and I are going to have a little get-together.
15:00Sorry, I'm carrying a dog like a baby. I never thought I'd see the day.
15:04But look at me.
15:05You've got to go practising sometime, James.
15:07Well, exactly.
15:09My name's Alan, I work with James at Chadridge House,
15:12and he affectionately calls me Big Al.
15:15You fill me with a lot of confidence, Big Al.
15:19It's a name that came about when we started working on the coffee shop together,
15:23and it seems to have stuck ever since.
15:26This is where the sauna's going.
15:27Oh, well, yes, in that field. That's Windmill Field.
15:29That's where it's all happening.
15:31Yeah, yeah.
15:31And then the idea is that the clients will check in at the cafe
15:35and then walk over to the sauna.
15:37Perfect.
15:38I don't know why it was called Windmill Field.
15:40Can I tell you why it's called Windmill Field?
15:41Why?
15:42That's your pump house for your water.
15:45Yeah.
15:45Before they had the pump, they had a windmill.
15:48That pumped.
15:48And that pumped the water.
15:50Really?
15:50That's why it's called the Windmill Field.
15:52Really?
15:52Have you made that up?
15:53That's true.
15:54Really?
15:54That's true, yeah.
15:56So how times have changed.
15:57That was the old butler's house that I live in now,
16:01before I'm moving into this house.
16:02It's quite a big difference going from that to that.
16:05I'm excited but I am unbelievably overwhelmed.
16:09And I still haven't quite comprehended what I am responsible for
16:15and also that I'm moving into a 50-room manor house.
16:19And I keep having to squash my fears
16:22because I know that it's even scarier for my wife.
16:37The thing about sheep is that they just don't stay
16:39where they're supposed to stay.
16:42We have a WhatsApp group called Chavenage Matters
16:45and it's basically everyone who lives on the estate
16:47or is one of the neighbours.
16:51And I think the most talked about thing on the group
16:53is sheep being out.
16:55There's sheep on the green, there's sheep on the lane.
16:58It's a bit of a thing.
17:02The first time I came to Chavenage,
17:04James said to me,
17:05let's go to my sort of family home where I grew up
17:07and we'll go for a walk.
17:09And I thought, oh, OK, that sounds lovely.
17:12And we parked up down near the valley.
17:14So we went for a walk down there and he said,
17:16oh, that's our field and that's our field.
17:17And I thought, blimey, this goes on forever.
17:21This is amazing.
17:22And then we came down to the house
17:23and I think at that point I was thinking,
17:25OK, this is slightly sort of more than I maybe first imagined.
17:30So you can see the house here.
17:33It sort of sometimes feels like I'm living in a period drama
17:36and like we've gone back in time 120 years or something
17:40and I sort of feel like my life's become a bit like that really.
17:45But it is when I'm down here and I look at the house from here
17:49and I just think it's absolutely amazing.
17:50It's so beautiful.
17:51And I do feel so fortunate.
17:55I think you're sort of so impressed,
17:57but you're also so kind of overwhelmed at the same time
18:00when you see somewhere like this and you think,
18:02oh, my God, is this going to be all your responsibility?
18:04That is insane.
18:08Despite the insanity,
18:10it hasn't taken Emma long to make her mark at Chavenage.
18:13By the time they were married,
18:15Emma and James decided to take a financial risk
18:18and develop a derelict barn into a new cafe.
18:23I'll give you these and then we'll bring all of your drinks out for you
18:27when they're ready.
18:29The cafe has become our baby.
18:30We absolutely love the cafe.
18:32It is a hub for the community now.
18:35You have to let me know what you think of the matcha.
18:37OK.
18:38What about if I don't like it?
18:39If you don't like it, I'll make you something else.
18:43Emma sold her flat in Bath
18:45in order to invest her own money in the new cafe business with James.
18:50So one iced normal and one iced decaf.
18:54Perfect.
18:55The build of the cafe was actually quite a big job.
18:59We did a lot of it ourselves, friends, family helped.
19:03I was a bit daunted and a bit nervous
19:05whether we'd made the right decision.
19:08I think Emma joining the family
19:10is one of the best things that's happened in the last few years.
19:14Hello, Flora.
19:14One of the cafe's most loyal customers is James's father,
19:18George.
19:20Yeah, we had a lovely morning in here.
19:22Good.
19:26Before this was done up here, this was just a kind of wasteland.
19:29It was just a shed full of rubbish.
19:31And so what's been really good,
19:33we're using it for something when it was nothing.
19:36Yeah.
19:36So there's been a huge improvement.
19:38And it's such a beautiful thing.
19:39Their vision has been really good.
19:40I think the whole kind of ethos of what you're creating
19:43is really good for Cambridge.
19:45And I think it's kind of helps the house.
19:47It helps everything.
19:48So, you know, it's not just this.
19:50There's people who come and go around the house
19:52who use this as a coffee shop.
19:53So the whole thing couldn't be better.
19:55That's good.
19:59It's quite an upheaval for us,
20:01because my generation have really come to the stage
20:03where we're trying to bow out a bit.
20:06Bear with.
20:07So to have someone coming in with this young energy
20:10is what's needed.
20:11Sorry, this is doing something really strange.
20:14So having a moment.
20:16It's always things crop up that you're not sure about.
20:20And we're still just in that time of really learning.
20:24I've got to remember the fact
20:25that I've actually grown up into this.
20:27You know, this is something I've been preparing for,
20:29you know, since I was old enough
20:31to understand what I was taking on.
20:33And so I've processed it over the last 20 years,
20:37when Emma's processed it for the last three.
20:40And hopefully Soph's going to help run our new sauna.
20:42Yes, yeah.
20:43I'm very excited about that, actually.
20:45I really see myself as being like a sauna assistant,
20:48you know, and being like,
20:49here's your robes, your slippers.
20:51It does scare me that, you know,
20:55it's up to us to keep this legacy going.
20:57And it will be, I think, really exciting
20:59to see everyone come and, like, have their coffee
21:01and then go to the sauna and then maybe stop for yoga.
21:03Oh, no! Amazing!
21:04It will be, yeah, like a whole little village here,
21:06which I think is super cool.
21:08We've got big dreams.
21:09Big dreams.
21:09Whether it will all happen.
21:11It will!
21:11We've got to try and make it all happen now, haven't we?
21:13I think my...
21:14My grandma...
21:15This is huge for James.
21:17He feels a huge weight on his shoulders to keep it going.
21:20And I feel it too now.
21:22But I think it's a huge, huge privilege,
21:24a huge responsibility at the same time.
21:29Having been a major part in the barn cafe build,
21:33Big Al is now getting stuck into the sauna project
21:36and has ordered the timber he thinks they need.
21:40And it's time for him to help James
21:42develop some practical skills.
21:44Right, James.
21:46People will need somewhere to change.
21:48What, they can't walk across the field?
21:50Can't walk across the field with their flip-flops
21:51and their bathrobes on.
21:54Yeah.
21:54So come up with this idea for a simple changing room.
21:58Pod, really.
21:593.6-metre-square deck.
22:01Yeah.
22:02Which you're going to help me to build.
22:04Yeah.
22:04And it's very simple.
22:05We use a timber frame
22:07and then we just put the supports in,
22:10which is the joists.
22:12Screw the decking boards onto that.
22:14Yeah.
22:14Build that in the barn.
22:16Take that out into the field.
22:18We build the upright structure onto it.
22:22We'll make that out of cowshed tin roof
22:25and then in there we can just build a timber pod
22:28which is just going to have three doors.
22:31So how much is this going to cost us in timber, do you reckon?
22:35Er, all the timber materials, about £1,300.
22:39On top of that we have roofing materials
22:41and then whatever you decide, cladding that you want on here.
22:45But the main frame, the deck, the walls, the insulation
22:50are all in on that £1,300 price.
22:53Okay, great.
22:54We've got a good plan.
22:56Me and you can build the deck in a day.
22:58Yep.
22:59Then we'll take it out to the field and put the frame on it.
23:02I can't wait to start building it again.
23:04It's been a while since our cafe project.
23:06It's been a while, but it's, erm, your skills have improved.
23:10They have actually improved.
23:11You're pretty good.
23:12You're pretty good.
23:12You know what you're doing now.
23:13I don't have to shout too much.
23:14No.
23:20Go through your lordship.
23:21Thank you, my friend.
23:22Come on, dogs.
23:24I've trained you well.
23:28Come on, Nunu.
23:31Nunu.
23:32Nora.
23:33Thanks, my friend.
23:35Don't work too hard.
23:36I don't pay you enough.
23:37You don't pay me at all, James.
23:38No.
23:39You do it for the love.
23:40Absolutely.
23:43Basically, he pays me in coffee and cake.
23:46Erm, my weekly coffee bill's probably about 250 quid, so call it quits.
23:57The sauna will look stunning.
23:58It'll be in the right place.
24:00It's the right piece of kit.
24:02Never a dull day in paradise.
24:05James is very much of the opinion.
24:07Build it and they will come.
24:08And, erm, we shall see.
24:13Will they come indeed?
24:15That, Big Al, is what we all want to know.
24:30All of the nine houses we are visiting have stood for centuries
24:34and have witnessed the ebb and flow of history.
24:37The tensions of the Tudor age, for example, led the owners of Pitchford Hall to create its secretive priest hole.
24:45And that same religious strife saw another of our houses play a role in the country's most famous flashpoint involving
24:53Protestants and Catholics.
24:55We've been marking the event each and every year since.
25:01Just south of rugby, preparations for the gunpowder plot came together at the delightful Ashby Manor House.
25:10In the early 1600s, Ashby's owner Robert Catesby was the mastermind of a plan to blow up the Houses of
25:19Parliament.
25:19It is believed that secret meetings with his co-conspirators took place here, inside the gatehouse.
25:30I always wonder what was going on in here because it's so dark.
25:34There's no electricity.
25:36Ashby's owner, Nova Guest, is determined to give the gatehouse the attention it deserves with some much-needed renovations.
25:45Actually, the funniest thing is that we didn't come in here for a number of years because we didn't have
25:50the key.
25:51It was sort of lost, misplaced, and then we found the key.
25:54So that was an exciting moment.
25:57Having cleaned the place up, it's already clear that this curious slice of British history has been largely ignored for
26:05a century.
26:06Before that, however, it was a very different story.
26:11I've got the long books here from the plot room, and I think these must be dated like late 1800s.
26:19Yeah, that's the first one, that's the second one.
26:22And I think it shows that there are a lot of visitors that came because there's only a...
26:26It's quite a short amount of time and they're just full of names.
26:30If we go right back to the beginning, yeah, 1885.
26:34So the Senhouses were the family that owned the manor before the Guest family,
26:42and they were here for a few hundred years.
26:44So Florence and Humphrey are the first entries.
26:50But I think after them, this looks like this is local people coming from Rugby in Northampton,
26:56from local towns, Watford, Longbuckby, Daventry, Welton, Leicester.
27:02These are just people coming to look in the plot room.
27:08Does it say West Australia?
27:15So 1886, 1888.
27:20I mean, it goes on.
27:23Well, everyone's been fascinated by the gunpowder plot since it happened.
27:27I mean, this is, you know, 120 years ago, and it was very much part of culture and history then.
27:37The concept of Bonfire Night was new to me.
27:40Being in Australia, we didn't have that in our history syllabus.
27:43I wasn't aware of what that was or who Guy Fawkes was.
27:48So quite amazing to arrive at this house when I first did,
27:51to realise that such a huge influence and part of that was Robert Catesby,
27:57living in this house and recruiting all those conspirators.
28:01Extraordinary.
28:04That looks like it's to the end of 1894.
28:06And then I think this one, which is actually a bit smarter.
28:09They've had a change in style of the logbook.
28:131896.
28:14And then this goes right through 1902.
28:21So these are a reminder of that this house and the grounds and the plot room have all been in
28:29everyone's,
28:30you know, they've always invoked such interest and intrigue.
28:36Nova and her husband have owned Ashby for 10 years now.
28:41Her aim in the next 12 months is to put the plot room back on the map
28:46and make it accessible to a new generation of visitors.
28:49Well, a great idea would be to get another logbook made,
28:53so that when we have our visiting school groups,
28:56they get to write their name in with their date that they came.
29:00That would be wonderful.
29:03With the gatehouse being Grade 1 listed, nothing is straightforward, however.
29:09In a few hours, National Heritage Organisation Historic England
29:14will be coming to assess Nova's plans to open the building.
29:17On hand right now, though, is local stonemason, Les Simblett.
29:23He's assisted Nova with various projects over the last 10 years.
29:27He's one of the few people already familiar with the gatehouse.
29:31But is this door original?
29:33Definitely, yeah.
29:34Really?
29:34That's absolutely original.
29:36And what I love about it is the little cat hole.
29:38Obviously, they had a cat or something,
29:40and they've cut a hole in for the cat to get in and out.
29:42Extraordinary.
29:43And look, what's all this?
29:44Different keys for different centuries?
29:47And I think it's a shame that they do another hole to put a new lock in,
29:51instead of getting one that fitted.
29:53But you can see how over the years they've used different keys,
29:56different locks, about six or seven.
29:58That's hilarious.
29:59OK, so we've got the key.
30:01Yep.
30:05Here we go.
30:12We're talking about the edge of the door,
30:14but you can see how old it is,
30:15because these are all like hand-cut panels,
30:17and they're handmade nails that have been driven through and clenched over.
30:20And when they hammer the nail through,
30:21you have somebody on the inside bending the nail,
30:24and if you do it properly, you bend the end over,
30:26and then that goes back into the wood and fitted back in.
30:29Gives it extra strength and bond.
30:31Very, very strong.
30:33I just love this bolt.
30:35That is so tactile.
30:41I'm not a fan of this old, is it 50s or 60s?
30:45Yes, 60s.
30:46Rusted electric casing.
30:49But if it's there,
30:50could we not rewire it to have some electricity in here,
30:52because that would be quite handy.
30:54I think you've got to bring it up to date, haven't you?
30:58No electricity might be the least of Nova's problems.
31:05It is a fantastic staircase, isn't it?
31:09However pretty it looks, it's going to need a lot of money.
31:13The seal is a bit of a mess, isn't it?
31:15It is.
31:17Obviously, replacing the last is more expensive.
31:19These have been nailed on wrong as well.
31:21They should all be staggered.
31:22So you should stagger the joints.
31:24Yes.
31:24So when do you think that they were incorrectly nailed on?
31:28When I came here when I was about six,
31:30and it had just been redone.
31:32It would have been 63, 64.
31:34If we have to actually replace this,
31:37that's going to be very expensive,
31:39as opposed to restoring what's there.
31:40Yeah.
31:41There's so many things wrong with the way the lats have been fixed,
31:44it might be better to replace them.
31:45That's going to make your quote very scary.
31:50Obviously, we want to make sure this is safe.
31:54So, is the floor safe?
31:56Is the ceiling safe?
31:58Is it structurally sound?
31:59So that we can open it to schools, you know, educational groups.
32:05That is solid.
32:06There's nothing wrong with them, Joyce.
32:08Well, I don't want you to jump on a bit that might not be solid.
32:10Yeah.
32:10The structural issues, however, are lurking elsewhere.
32:16You can see the extent of the cracking there.
32:18Yes.
32:18And how much light's going through,
32:20and how much weather's coming through.
32:21I mean, we can't have all these gaps here.
32:27There's also the loft space above the plot room.
32:32This is the roof, which is fantastic.
32:36I think it's probably a habitable room at one time.
32:39I think the children would have slept up here.
32:42I think the bedrooms would have been up here.
32:44But when the roof was repaired,
32:47I don't think they've bothered refurbishing it.
32:50But a lack of furnishings has been no concern
32:53for Ashby's crow population.
32:56The loft space now features a number of giant nests.
33:00You see them in the spring,
33:01you see them going through all sorts of gaps in the roof
33:04and here, there and everywhere.
33:06Another example of all the work that needs there.
33:09There's a bit of a squirrel's tail there.
33:12I'm just wondering whether crows eat squirrels.
33:15Heading down.
33:19In my mind, I was thinking,
33:21yes, we're going to come in
33:22and just fix the internal ceiling
33:25and then we're going to be finished.
33:26But actually, I realised we're going to need
33:28to get the cherry picker, fix all the outside.
33:30It needs all draft proofing.
33:34I think we need to look at that staircase.
33:37I think there's more work in here than I realised.
33:41And there's still the small matter of historic England's visit.
33:55Back at Ashby Manor, owner Nova Guest is preparing for the arrival
34:00of the man from the conservation organisation English Heritage
34:04to advise on what can and can't be done to the historic plot room.
34:16It's always a big day when historic England enter the property.
34:19That's a big moment.
34:21I just want this to be all neat and tidy,
34:24how it should always be.
34:25So I'm having a proper clean up in anticipation of their arrival.
34:30We always wanted it to be looking great.
34:36Historic England is a public body charged with protecting
34:40and promoting national heritage.
34:43When tackling renovation work on a Grade 1 listed building,
34:47its support is essential.
34:51Worst case, he says, this is structurally not near where it needs to be.
34:55I mean, that would be a scenario where we say, well, do you know what?
34:58We're going to have to shut the door of that plot room again for quite a while
35:01and come back to it,
35:02because that's just not going to be something we can just
35:06pull that money into right now.
35:08Come on in!
35:10Up here.
35:12Meetings like this do tend to be a little nerve-wracking.
35:17I don't know if you've been here before.
35:18No, first time.
35:19No, exactly.
35:20I've seen lots about it, read lots about it.
35:22Yeah.
35:24But luckily for Nova, there's good news an hour later.
35:29It was a very positive meeting.
35:31I think from his perspective,
35:32the most important thing is that we haven't got water coming in.
35:37So he said, before you do anything inside,
35:40let's make sure that all the cracks have been fixed up.
35:43And I feel that we can move forward, you know,
35:46in some realistic timeframes.
35:47It's not going to take years.
35:48I think in the next couple of months we'll see,
35:50we'll be able to have Maids in Progress.
35:54Progress, which we will be back to see.
36:04A little earlier we were at Pitchford Hall,
36:07Shropshire's magnificent half-timbered treasure.
36:11Rowena Coldhurst can trace her family history at the house
36:15right back to its Tudor origins.
36:17But on this occasion, the real story is what's unfolded
36:23in the past 35 years.
36:27In fact, it's remarkable that Rowena and James
36:30are undertaking Pitchford Hall's epic restoration at all.
36:35So my mother, Caroline, was lucky to inherit Pitchford in 1972,
36:41and that's why I was lucky to grow up here and have my childhood here.
36:47My parents absolutely loved it,
36:49and I remember my mother saying that when she first bought my father,
36:54and I think she described them as sort of skipping around the house,
36:57the idea of my parents skipping around the house was rather lovely.
37:00It's funny, I've never heard that story.
37:01So it's interesting for me.
37:07You know, I did really realise how privileged I was,
37:11but ultimately it was just my family home and I loved being here.
37:18But as Rowena reached her early 20s, her parents were facing a financial crisis.
37:26Unfortunately, with all the bills piling up to restore the house
37:31and have to do the roof and everything,
37:33my parents both entered into Lloyds of London as insurance names,
37:38and then unfortunately they were both put in the worst possible syndicates.
37:43I remember them getting these letters and being really stressed about it and stuff,
37:48but they didn't really tell me the extent of it.
37:53Originally, my parents tried their very best to save the house
37:56and think of what to do, and we went to English Heritage,
38:01a National Trust came and every conceivable expert turned up,
38:04but they wanted a £10 million endowment, which clearly we didn't have.
38:09The sale with Christie's was organised
38:12and I remember them going around putting stickers on all the contents of the house.
38:17I have to say I couldn't face being here for the sale,
38:20my parents couldn't face it.
38:23So, after losing much of the family money in the insurance market,
38:28the home was ultimately sold for £700,000.
38:33To be told that that was all kind of coming to an end,
38:37in a very public way, you know, there had been a debate in Parliament,
38:41articles in the Telegraph, the Times, you know,
38:44Breakfast TV covered it and things, so it was quite a public humiliation.
38:48I don't think her parents ever really, you know, recovered,
38:53not surprisingly, if you'd been told that your family home was about to be sold.
38:58She was very emotional.
39:01I remember, you know, coming to James and floods of tears upstairs and...
39:09..best thing James ever did was to try and cheer me up.
39:15..he took me to an oak tree and we made a vow to try and get the house back again.
39:21And we'd do everything that we could to, you know,
39:26do our very best to try and get the house back.
39:29And that really gave me a feeling of hope and inspiration.
39:33And that was really where the story began in terms of our quest to get the house back.
39:49You see, there's a big hollow in this incredible oak tree.
39:53There should be a coin somewhere in there.
39:55Yeah, it's definitely, we definitely put the coin in there.
39:57We'll probably find it.
39:59Well, I'm not sure I'll be able to find it, but I know, I know it's in there.
40:02Well, I think it went right into the bowels of the hollow, but, um...
40:06But no, this is it. It was like a sort of sacred place to us.
40:11So I love this tree.
40:13I mean, for me, it was such a symbolic moment.
40:16It meant everything, cos it meant that there was a quest and we were in it together
40:21and it meant that James cared about Pitchford as much as I did.
40:25It just felt really, really significant.
40:29Mm.
40:38For the next 25 years, Pitchford Hall was in the hands of a Kuwaiti princess.
40:44But despite having a new owner, to Rowena's great distress, the house remained empty.
40:52We were constantly checking on the house and trying to see what was happening
40:56and it obviously got worse and worse because it was literally empty.
41:02It was just desolate. It was really awful, really sad.
41:06I felt desperately sorry for the house.
41:09In the years after the sale, Rowena and James were married.
41:14But they never forgot the vow they had made.
41:17And in 2016, an opportunity arose to buy Pitchford Hall back, albeit for more than twice what it had been
41:26sold for.
41:28Basically, I got a text message from the Kuwaiti princess's agent saying that she was prepared to sell the house
41:35back to us,
41:37which was obviously incredible, as long as we came up with the money in a certain amount of time.
41:42We obviously had to persuade a bank to lend us the money and, by some miracle, we managed to get
41:48there.
41:49So this was the door we came through and I remember coming with the key.
41:53But honestly, I was in such a state of emotion. I was shaking. I could not, you'll remember this.
41:59I couldn't, I couldn't get the key into the lock. It was really impossible because I was so emotional.
42:07And she eventually had to say, can you open the door for me? I literally cannot open it.
42:12It's just too much kind of emotion.
42:17What's more, Rowena had no idea what to expect when she stepped back inside.
42:24I turned the corner into here and I have to admit, we came in and it was a bit more
42:33of a shock
42:33because to me it looked like the ceiling was falling in and at the back of my mind you're also
42:38thinking,
42:38oh my goodness, we've got a huge, like, mountain to climb in terms of how much work there is,
42:44judging from, you know, just that ceiling falling down.
42:51The other thing that happened, do you know where that newspaper's gone, James?
42:55So to my amazement, my parents' newspaper was still sitting on the kitchen table
43:01and so that made me feel, I mean, I just, I mean, time stood still.
43:07It was literally that feeling and I thought it was rather lovely thought that my,
43:11the last people in here and my parents reading the papers having their coffee in the morning.
43:18Everything was left, you know, because no one ever lived here for 25 years.
43:23Everything that Rowena's parents kind of put down was, remained for 25 years.
43:31Rowena and James are finally able to call Pitchford Hall home again.
43:40One completed restoration task, though, is Pitchford's wonderful 18th century clock.
43:48The weights actually drop outside of the house,
43:50so you can see them falling as the clock ticks and then when you wind it up,
43:55the weight goes right back up, so it's very, very rare.
44:03The clock is now working for the first time in perhaps 70 years.
44:10And the restoration also means that one of the tidiest spaces inside the whole house is the attic.
44:17The bell has a date, 1776, which is obviously the year of American independence.
44:25So it's a fascinating day.
44:27I'm just going to wind this up and then we'll get the clock going.
44:33We have to wind this up about every three or four days.
44:40And the weights are outside.
44:43These huge lead weights just hang down the clock tower.
44:49OK, that's about right.
44:50I'll just move and get the pendulum going very gently.
44:54That should be going now.
44:59This is obviously the original mechanism.
45:01Some of these parts we had to remake.
45:05Certainly the main mechanism is original.
45:09And it still works.
45:12We found the clock expert,
45:15who originally used to wind up all the clocks of Pitchford during my mother-in-law's ownership.
45:20And he came back, you know, to the hall 30 years later and got the clock working.
45:28It's all about, you know, life being brought back and the kind of ticking heart of the hall.
45:37Next time on Saving Country Houses...
45:41Sorry, take him up, Dad.
45:43We return to County Durham to see how local folklore comes alive at Bransworth Castle.
45:50And then saw The Witcher Bransworth silent.
45:54Oh, really good. Excellent. Wonderful. Love that.
45:59We head underground at Pitchford Hall.
46:02We've got a two-metre section where the stonework is completely missing.
46:06It's sounding like quite an expensive job.
46:10And we meet Dorset's most unlikely countess.
46:16It is cold.
46:17This is completely different of anything I could have ever imagined living at a historic house.
46:25Let's just look at this.
46:26I'm sorry, just for your time for this.
46:31Let's just look at this.
46:32Doesn't mean that we can't come back in any way.
46:34I'm sorry.
46:40Let's try it again.
46:42I'm sorry.
46:43Let's go back to work.
46:43I put everything in here.
46:44Let's go back to school.
46:44Let's go.
46:51Let's go back.
46:55You
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