Grand Designs (1999–…): Season 18, Episode 10 - Herefordshire, 2017 - full transcript

There is a sort of
universal truth in self-build,

a golden piece of advice,
which is that you should spend

as little time as possible
building your house

in order to spend the maximum amount
of time living in it, enjoying it.

Of course, some people
get that the wrong way round.

They become addicted to the process.

They spend years digging
and delving and constructing,

enjoying the process of
putting something together,

often to the detriment

of the quality of life
of their family.

You have to ask, you know,



are there any exceptional
circumstances in which

that approach is somehow allowable?

And I can only think of
one circumstance -

where the family's way of life,
their culture, if you like,

is all about digging and
delving and making and doing,

where the entire family collaborate

towards producing a masterpiece.

Ten years ago,

Ed and Rowena Waghorn embarked
on one of the most ambitious

and long-running projects
Grand Designs has ever undertaken.

I've been dipping in and out

of their lives
and their project ever since,

in it for the long haul,

following their story
all the way to its conclusion.



Back in 2007,

they'd bought an eight-acre
smallholding in Herefordshire

on which Ed had already built
some temporary accommodation.

They lived almost exclusively
off the land,

with sheep for wool, chickens
for eggs and goats for milk.

Having so much to do outside

is hugely important
for the children.

The jobs have to be done.

Doesn't matter whether it's
beautiful sunshine

or pouring with rain.

I think they have
a really good grounding

in the things which, I suppose,
Ed and I put a value on,

which is your home
and feeding yourself

and what we deem to be
the important things in life.

They had life savings
of just £100,000

and yet they wanted to build

an extraordinary handcrafted
family home on their land,

using skills Ed picked up
years ago as a furniture maker.

I've always liked making things
anyway, with whatever,

with all sorts of different
materials, so I'm very happy

building things, so I feel
fine about building a house.

From the start, it was clear
that Ed and Rowena's house

was going to reflect them
and every aspect of their lives.

It's quite organic in nature
and very much of the ground.

We're sort of amassing
materials all the time.

We have chestnut from a woodland,

we have a certain amount of stone
that's on site that we can use.

Have you got a budget? Um...

In a vague sort of way.

This was unlike
any other project I'd seen.

No hard-and-fast schedule and an
approach best described as fluid.

It might be that we don't
finish for another five years

but it's all part of life, isn't it?

Ed and Rowena's handmade house

will be tucked into the hillside.

The structural frame
will be locally sourced timber

and in-filled with straw and clay.

Downstairs, family life will revolve
around a rough and ready kitchen,

hand-built by Ed, of course.

This sits next to
the heart of the house,

best described as a medieval hall,

heated by a great stone hearth

and lit by a cathedral-scale
cruck-framed window

that'll enjoy the vast panoramas
across their Herefordshire valley.

Behind the hall will sit a snug

and a small workroom for Rowena.

In the centre of this arrangement,

a sculpted timber staircase

will lead to a first-floor
gallery-cum-landing.

On one side of this, Ed will build

three bedrooms for the children
and a shower room...

..and on the other, two more
bedrooms and a family bathroom.

Above this handcrafted building,

Ed plans a dummy thatched
mansard roof.

The plan was to build with as much
found material as possible -

economical as well as
ecologically sound.

And it all started with
timber from the local woods.

It feels really good just to be
getting it from two miles away,

cutting it, sawing it
and building it at home.

The children see this happening and
really, for them, it's quite normal.

It's so much how we live
and how our lives are.

That's it.

By exploiting his carpentry skills,

Ed knew he could save money
and do most of the work himself.

A noble ambition, of course,

but the result was
a glacially slow project.

How much do I get into building
a lovely dry stone wall?

How much do I get on with

getting the house built
so everyone can move in?

The latter.
LAUGHTER

That would be my advice.

When building work began,
the kids were young...

I'm having that one.

..and keen to get into their
new house and their new bedrooms.

When will it be done?
Oh, no time at all.

When?

You said at the end of this summer.
I know.

When we're leaving home you'll be
like, "The house is finished!"

Rome wasn't built in a day, and nor
is anything else worth having.

But this is smaller than Rome, so...

It's smaller! ..it should be able to
be made in a day.

One reason why
everything took so long

was Ed's desire to recycle
and re-use materials.

Ed's quite good at sort of
scavenging things.

He's a great collector of things
that might one day become useful.

This was helpful in stretching
their modest 100-grand budget,

especially after Ed had been made
redundant as an estate manager.

Progress on the project
was leisurely.

One year stretched to two.

It's going to be magnificent,
isn't it?

But it's not going to be done
by September, is it?

Because we're in September.

Then three...and four.

So when do you suppose
you'll have all these done,

ready for the...working surface?

Um... Well, um,
hopefully by Christmas.

Do you think that Ed
is going to deliver? Yes.

You say that very confidently.
I am very confident.

But four years after starting,
the house was still a shell

with no internal walls.

It looked as though Ed and Rowena

might never have a finished home
for their family.

What's "finished"?

There's finished
and there's finished.

I'm just looking for finished.

I don't... I don't need...

No, I... Ed will have little
somethings, you know,

he'll have... There always will be
something. Exactly.

But this project and the ideas
behind it are powerful,

and I've wanted from day one
to see what original delights

will spring from Ed's idiosyncratic,
highly creative mind.

I think this project is so special

that I'm back
to pick up their story again

and follow it to the end.

It has been some time
since I was last here,

which means I've now, um,
sort of forgotten where it is.

The big question, of course,
is whether Ed and Rowena

have... Oh, is that it? That's it.

I missed it.

Whether Ed and Rowena
have done anything.

Oh, here we are.

Hello, goats, hello, sheep.

Hello! Hello! Hello!

Hi, Kevin. Hi, how are you?
Good to see you. And you.

Hello, Rowena. Hello. How are you?

Good. Very good to see you.
Nice to see you've dressed up.

For the occasion!

Yes. You've done the animals,
I guess, this morning.

Yeah, I've been doing a bit of work.
Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Good. Is the kettle on? It is.

Come on.

That's the most important question
I had to ask you.

The house is still
wrapped in scaffolding,

but the scale is already impressive.

Ah, yeah.

What a lovely space.

Just as I remember it.
It makes for a great workshop.

Yeah, it's a great workshop!

However, that's not its purpose.

No, of course not!

I keep forgetting. Yeah.

I can see incremental progress.

Walls are beginning to emerge
and floors are appearing.

The beautiful oak floor is down.
Or is it chestnut again?

Chestnut. Hard to tell in this
light, but it's fantastic.

I've chosen to put them just down
as sawn boards.

And then we'll...
And then we'll sand it afterwards.

Meanwhile, the children
are growing up

and the family are still living in
their "temporary home"

as Ed fashions his masterpiece.

I understand
you're perfectly comfortable here

and life can go on here
for as long as you need it to,

but at the same time, it would be
good to be living there.

It would be. Yes. It would be great.

It's hard to explain, really,

the...the sort of dynamic
within the family.

I mean, it's been happening
all their lives!

So... So it's just... "Daddy's
building something on the hill,

"and we're going to live in it
one day."

So, money.

Any left?

Yes, a little bit left,
but we're eking it out.

So are you still working full-time
on the project?

Er, yes. Really, yes. So no income.
Yeah.

But it's eking out
surprisingly well.

To have made the money last so long
is surprising.

But that's because Ed and Rowena
aren't like other self-builders,

or other people, for that matter.

I mean, on most projects,
there's insurance,

there's some kind of welfare unit
for the builders

and there's a site toilet to hire
and scaffolding and fencing,

but here, there's none of that.

They've got somewhere to live,
they're all happy.

And the project actually benefits
from a slower approach

because it allows Ed to solve
problems as he goes along.

There is another way, isn't there,
in construction? And this is it.

Let me take you back to 2013.

At this point, the Waghorn family
have already

been building their house
for a whopping six years.

It's of a scale, scope,
design and schedule

that very few would contemplate
attempting.

A friend came round and said
he always describes it as,

"Oh, he's building a cathedral."

But the reason he said that

was because cathedrals take
more than one generation to build.

And I thought, oh, nice.

LAUGHS

One of the most daunting jobs,

just because of its sheer scale,
is the roof.

Ed has jettisoned thatch
in favour of long wooden shingles.

He can make them himself,
shaping each one individually

and overlaying them like tiles.

Lovely,
but of course labour intensive.

To shape the planks that will
fit around the dormer windows,

Ed starts by steaming them,
eight at the time.

Then they get very hot
and then the cells soften

and that's when I can twist them.

I did watch a YouTube video,
and you get sort of Americans

in the middle of nowhere, you know,

just saying,
you do this, you do that.

And it's great.

And so you can learn lots from that.

There we are.
Whooph, and it's alight.

So now we just leave it
for two and a half hours

and then we take it out
and put it in the jig.

The jig holds eight wooden tiles.

And they stay clamped
for about three days.

Ed will need 2,000 of them.

Oh, this is beautiful!

They look, from down there,
like super shingles

and that's what they are - they're
an inch and a half thick, mind.

I like the fact
that they're staggered.

And these are made from what -
is this cedar?

Yeah, Western red cedar.
Western red cedar.

It's surprisingly soft,
but extraordinarily durable.

You're fixing them to conventional
battens on cross-battens.

It's quite tricky round the dormers.

The cedar boards are in twists,
they have to be in twists,

to get round the dormers.
Oh, Ed, this is beautiful!

I'm looking at a piece
of finished building.

We are, almost. And if there were
no scaffolding there,

I'd imagine that this was all done.

It's quite something.

You're halfway there, aren't you?

Maybe a third. Yeah, a third.

It's just a matter of motoring on
and getting it done now.

Just a matter of motoring on
and getting it done.

Motoring at Ed's speed, of course.

It's taken him three months
to cover a third of the roof.

The floorboards are going down.

Oh, right, these are the real...

Yeah, these are floorboards.
Yeah. These are the ones.

What are you insulating with?
It's cork.

Oh, it's granulated cork. Yeah.

It looks like rat droppings.
It's nice, though, isn't it?

It's good stuff, isn't it? Yeah.

It doesn't compact in the same way
that some materials do.

And when it does, it springs back,
doesn't it, cork?

Yeah, so if there's any spillage or
anything in the kitchen,

it could get wet,
but it can dry out again.

It can dry out. Nice.

So, in terms of insulating,

going into the building to keep you
warm, you've got this stuff,

the cork underfloor, you've got this
stuff, that's newspaper, isn't it?

Yes. I can tell because
something's been at it there.

And you put that through a machine
and blow it in. Yeah.

There's the machine. Oh, there's
the machine. Have you been blowing?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We've already got
quite a lot on the back wall.

On the back wall? For all
the wavy edge stuff, which I love,

and it's brilliant at doing,
and it's exciting to see,

I'm as excited by that back wall
insulation.

Because that says to me -
properly-made, airtight building

that's going to be insulated.

Everything in this house has
Ed's fingerprints on it.

From idea to execution.

In every detail, from the building's
technology to its construction,

this is one man's hand-made house,

exemplified by the enormous
cathedral window.

It took three years for Ed and
his part-time carpenter, Sylvain,

to choose the right-shaped cruck
timbers and put them into place.

OK, one, two, three.

For Ed, so much of this project
has been about the pleasure

of making a beautiful object,

however long it takes.

One, two, three.

Ooh!

This has taken rather a long time,
making this window.

So I do believe in getting attached
to the materials we're working with,

but perhaps not quite as attached
as we've had to,

with this particular window.

But it is a very important window.

Oh, that was all right, wasn't it?

What impresses me most
about this, Ed,

is the symmetry of the window,
left to right.

And I'm guessing you've done that
by splitting...

Yeah, that's one tree
that grew that way

and we've just sawn it
down the middle.

But what's interesting is,
yeah, it grew that way,

but it sort of fits in an almost
perfect parabolic shape.

It's now almost seven years

since I first met Ed and Rowena.

Inside the house,

Ed's divided the vast interior
into recognisable rooms.

And upstairs, the partition walls
are plastered

to make three spacious, very
longed-for bedrooms for the girls.

True to form,

Ed can't resist spending weeks
on the smallest of details.

This is a stand for a basin.

So the basin is upside down

and I'm building the stand...

the wrong way up.

And the stand is made of

loads of little bits of off-cut
off the floorboards.

I'm building it like this in little
chunks and that will taper up

and then I'll sand
the whole thing off.

I probably could have bought in some
sort of base for that basin as well.

But, for me,
that would have been a bit boring.

Everything is hand made,

Ed made...

and nothing goes to waste.

A commendable principle
that extends to every corner

of Ed and Rowena's lives here.

Ed is very much
the builder and the house.

And mine is very much more
the land and the animals.

There's a daily routine.

There's a weekly routine.

There's a seasonal routine.
And we live by it.

Choosing to live like this
slows down the pace of everything,

including the project,

as Ed continues to craft
every element from scratch.

It's the collar that goes
around the top of the post

just before the sort of petals,
as I call them.

And it just needed something
to just stop before branching out.

So that's all it is, really.

It's like a little necklace, really,
that just makes the head better.

Seven years since building began,

the day I had doubted
would ever arrive

finally does.

The children are now teenagers,

and the family are leaving their
old place and moving up the hill

to the new house and doing it
their way - very, very slowly.

I said I wanted a big kitchen,
a larder and a veranda.

That was it,
that was my requirements.

And I've got my big kitchen
and I will have a larder.

And I will have a veranda...

..when that end is done.

There's still
a mountain of work for Ed to do,

but mains electricity, solar panels
and water are now in place.

The house is warm and the children
are getting used to the space.

I've never had my own room,

so I'm not having to share
with other people.

Cos that's been quite annoying.

A door would be nice,
a wall would also be nice,

I'm missing a wall on one side.

Yeah, I don't really mind.

Now the girls have rooms,
they want to paint them.

They're used to making
and doing things themselves,

so they're mixing the paint
from raw pigment.

That's nice. Is it a bit bathroomy?

I think I should put a bit more
green in. A bit more green.

Shall I show you how to cut it
into the wood?

So you just drag it with
the bristles pointing in towards

the... OK, I'll try.
Then you can stroke out

with the weight of paint behind it.

I'll start off
doing it in the middle

so there'll be too much to go on
the edge. Yeah, that's right, yes.

So a bit close to that.
That's exactly it.

You see how what a good line
you can get? Yeah.

There's one very large wall that
needs more than a coat of paint.

Yeah, that looks lovely.

As you come in through the door
into the hall,

you're presented with this wall.

So it's a really important
wall in an important space.

This space will be probably

the most beautiful space
in the building.

It's a lime render going on. So it
breathes nicely and it looks lovely.

It looks soft, it almost looks like
a sort of porcelain as it goes on,

but it'll dry much lighter.

Over the next year, work progresses
at the usual slow and steady pace.

But the meagre budget is
running out.

And the bigger jobs,
like the floor and ceiling,

can't be completed by Ed alone.

So, now we're at a point where we're
not finished on the main house,

but this part
that we were living in,

we need to make use of that,
we need to probably have people

come and stay and have people
pay us to come and stay

cos we need to just raise
a bit of money

to make the main house
moved on and completed.

Ed can now only spend two days
a week on the new house.

For the other five, he's here,

renovating the old one with the
same meticulous attention to detail.

Concealed within this wall,
there's the chimney flue

and this is the vent
from the bathroom.

So I'm just making a little guard
to go on the end of the vent,

so that little field mice
don't fall in.

This is classic Ed, spending
precious time on the tiniest detail.

And now, with two projects
to see through,

I'm starting to think
that it's purely

the pleasure he takes in building,

not the finishing,
that's driving Ed.

Ed and Rowena have now been living
in their new place for two years.

I enjoy myself
so much on this project.

For once, I've found myself not
saying to the self-builder,

"Hurry up, get on with it,
because life's about living

"in a completed house
and enjoying what you've built."

Here instead,
it's about something else.

It's about finding
the pleasure in the making

rather than in the having.

Hello. Hello!

How are you? Good. Very good to see
you both. You're cold.

Well, hello, Ed, how are you?

Good, yeah. Very good to see you.

I mean, look, it's been three years
since past I came.

So the house is still unfinished,
but you're here and happy, yeah?

Yeah. Using the space.

I know you've got great plans
for this space, haven't you? Yeah.

We're going to have... The ceiling
is going to be going in.

That's going to be a domed,
vaulted ceiling, which is going to

be very beautiful.
How do you work out the design?

Is it all done with paper
and calculation, or is it...?

I can't imagine it's your way.

No, I'm just going to...tink it up.
What? What?!

Well, I've already experimented with
the idea with the chicken run.

It is basically a geodesic
dome principle.

Unlike the chicken run, which is
just, you know,

form follows function, at each
joint, there will have to be,

like, a boss just to conceal or
detail that joint.

Just like in a piece of Medieval
fan tracery. Yeah, exactly, yeah.

But in a, sort of, woody more rustic
way. Obviously not quite as...

Yeah, you're obviously not expecting
to do heads of the saints, no. No.

No, that might take too long.

The ceiling may still be
a work in progress,

but the staircase is a testament to
what Ed is capable of

and why it's worth
waiting for his magic touch.

Wow.

This is, em... This is spectacular.

It's unfinished,
but it's spectacular.

Presumably there'll be
plaster on this board, yeah?

And there might even be a handrail.

This is all beautifully knifed,
this is scraped. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Drawn timber. Really exciting.

That kind of spans contemporary
design,

craftsmanship, medieval design.

Everything - it just crosses
all of those boundaries.

Can we go up? Yeah, let's go. Yeah?

These are very generous
and beautiful. Is this oiled?

It must be. Is it?
It feels very silky underfoot. Yeah.

So where are we now? These must be
the girls' bedrooms. Right.

Robert's bedroom is where?
He's down there. Little stairs.

You're over there? Yeah.
We're in the middle.

So through the arch window.
Arch window.

Great.

Of course, it doesn't matter hugely
to Ed, Rowena or the kids

that doors are missing or
the plaster isn't finished.

This place is such a major
improvement on where

they were living,
with the added luxury of space.

The electrics aren't completely in
and all the switching

isn't completely where we'd want it.

The floors aren't all in
and we've had lots of fun doing

decorative things with the floors.

Forgive me for asking, I can't even
remember if there was a budget

for this project, whether or
not there was a kind of...

We played around with
it in the early days, didn't we?

It's probably still in budget.

So much of what's here isn't bought.

It is just made out of what's
here... Yes, exactly.

..or what you've found or scavenged
or bought in such a raw

state that it was pence, as it were.

Is that still the case?

Are you still able to
get your chestnut cheap? Yeah.

Actually,
this chestnut was firewood grade,

but I just selected out the bits
that were useful.

Just picking out he nice bits.

So that's how it is.

The doors for the girls' bedrooms,
which I am now...

They're starting to happen.
That's off-cuts from the roof.

I just hang on to all the bits
and pieces

and they just come in for something.

The smallest cut offs
go in the wood burner, presumably.

They have to be very small.

Doors have been low down on Ed's
list of priorities,

but he's finally made one.

It's for Manie's room.

I've lived without a bedroom
door for so long.

Now, obviously,
a bedroom door is going to be nice.

The first thing is
we bang these two bits in.

Bits in? The hinges.
Can I see these?

These you've made. This is a split
pin, rather like a clothes peg.

Once it's in, we bang a wedge in.

Wedge in the top, then it can't come
back out again.

Exactly. Have you got a mallet,
then? I have a mallet, yes. Good.

In fact, I think
I'll probably use a hammer.

May I? Thank you.

So now we slide the other
parts of the hinge into the door.

That's in. Wow.
It's really elegant, that dovetail.

So now we lift this up.
Drop the pins in. Exactly. Yeah.

That's it.

So that now, in theory,
should just open and swing.

There we are.

Door. Lovely.

Across ten years of building
and making,

Ed has tenaciously held on to
his vision for the most dramatic

space in the house,
the double-height living room,

to be crowned with a vaulted
ceiling,

first trialled in his chicken run.

I'm not quite sure where the
idea for this came from.

I just can't resist experimenting
with pretty well everything.

That's sort of my nature. I think
it's going to work brilliantly here.

The panels are obviously
plastered in.

But I think it's going to be really,
really exciting.

Ed's crafting a hand-worked
lattice across the ceiling

from very low-grade chestnut.

It's fantastically cheap.
I mean, it's firewood, effectively.

Then split down the grain and it
splits in whatever way it sees fit.

All that grain is intact.

It's very strong and obviously very
lovely and very shapely.

Quite difficult to fit,

but it is a lovely looking thing
when it's done, you know.

I reckon, on a good day,
I can maybe fit eight of these.

There's 40 pieces in each quarter.

So that's five days.

That's on a good day.

So, um, I reckon it may be
taking about a week, I suppose,

to get all the pieces into one
quarter.

So once I have this lattice
completely in place,

I'll then roll out a reed
mat on top of the lattice,

and then plaster the little
sections between the chestnut.

Then that will obviously be
beautifully painted.

It's going to actually just
completely make the space.

To complement the ceiling of almost
gothic complexity,

Ed plans a robust medieval
floor here.

We're planning on doing
a rammed earth floor.

So that's just earth from outside
with some gritty material

laid in and rammed, and oils.

It's a lovely, lovely finish.

There's one area of floor that will
receive a more lavish treatment -

the triangular
section at the centre of the house.

Thank you.

OK. That's for the centre, actually.

These stones are just...

It's just bits of slab that have
come out of a hill.

They all have to be cut to
fit into my puzzle.

My brother Will is out there
cutting the stones for me to place.

It is a local sandstone, but quite
a good, solid one, which is

quite good for a floor.

It made sense to do it life-size,
full-scale,

rather than just with little
bits of paper or with drawings.

I'd have just got through
loads of paper.

I wouldn't have ever quite seen how
it was going to look.

With this level of craftsmanship,

it's no surprise it's taken ten
years to get to this point.

As the house has grown up,
so too have the family.

They've all caught Ed's
bug for making things.

Dad's asked me to make these light
surrounds

aesthetically more pleasing.

I've made them out of stonework and
clay, then he sort of set me

free with the designs that
I choose to put on them.

As he renovates their old place,

Ed is even reinventing
the humble light switch.

Where we used to live,
that's turning into a great place to

trial some of these ideas
that are perhaps more experimental.

One of the things that I'm working
on at the moment is switching

all the lightings on pulley systems.

This is the rope that
operates the switch.

So basically I tie that off in the
right place. It's the switch.

That's on, that's off.

It's just the joy of having the rope
running round and everything.

This action is transferred
through the rope,

through to the switch over there,
and then the cable to the

light comes off that and goes to the
light. It's all very visual.

It's all very visual
and all very experiential.

I'm not sure I dare say it,

but it almost feels like the end
is in sight.

Ed's now finishing
the ceiling of the new house.

Given the scale
and difficulty of plastering it,

he's brought in a master of the art,
Jonathan Gilbert.

It's been a challenge, because it's
all different shapes within

one panel, which means you can't...

I mean, Jonathan would just love to
get his trowel and just smooth

the whole thing off with a trowel
like a plasterer would normally do.

We can't do that.

We have to actually work in to all
the shapes that the curve is

presenting, which is challenging.
But it's fine.

We've managed to get a finish that
we're happy with.

For a decade of building,
I've watched this family grow up

and flourish alongside this project.

I now have one more visit to
make to mark what

I hope is the culmination of
Ed and Rowena's long,

epic journey through a world of
craftsmanship

to their final destination -

a beautiful, permanent home.

It's over ten years
since I first met

Ed and Rowena on their
Herefordshire hillside,

now marked by
a very substantial house.

Well...

It is so gratifying to see what
looks like a finished house.

It's sort of like something
from a fairy tale, this building.

Mrs Tiggy Winkle's mansion.

The woodcutter's stately home.

Now, that is a surprise.

I don't know if you remember,

but the dugout where they lived
had no roof on it to speak of.

Now look at it, it's manicured,
it's beautiful.

It sort of promises great things
up the hill, doesn't it?

It now commands the hillside,

and at the same time looks
as if it's been here for ever.

And so far, it's all
looking beautifully spruce.

That looks like
a door within a door,

in the finest
tradition of medieval castles.

Inside a frame, which is inside a
window, which is inside the opening.

It's magnificent, isn't it?

How do you get in?

Hello! Hello!

Hello! Hello!

How are you? Good.

Very good to see you both! Good to
see you. It's lovely to see you too.

Thank you, it's great to be here.
How's your house? It's coming on.

I can sort of begin to see.
Come on in. Can I? Yes, thank you.

Straight off the entrance
is the great hall.

The experience of the ground floor

is now a seamless juxtaposition
of hall and kitchen.

Oh!

HE CHUCKLES

How extraordinary.

It's glorious, Ed.

The most striking thing is
the great hall's vaulted ceiling.

At six metres,

a real crowning glory.

Without doubt,
technically accomplished

and visually remarkable.

And unequalled on the planet.

Every joint is
covered by a little boss,

but the boss is like a timber rope.

Yes. We thought
they looked like ribbons.

I'm overwhelmed by this.

I've never
been in a building like it.

I don't think another
building like this exists.

I don't think so, Kevin, no.

Is it like roof structures
should be, is it stronger?

It's really robust actually.
It's really robust. Remarkable.

Yes, so that's encouraging.
The window.

The window I always admired seems
completely right and appropriate.

Before, the inside was quite chaotic
and darker, so you were kind

of drawn to this as sort of relief,
but now it's a proper fourth wall.

The main window is another wonderful
piece of handcrafted joinery,

built on the same scale
as the tree it came from.

The big window is part of that
big statement. The big room.

There's something gorgeous about its
proportions, and its grand scale.

I'm clutching onto medieval fan
vaulting, but frankly it seems...

I suppose with those grander
buildings, they always had

the best materials and the most
perfect timbers and stones.

We've created those forms
with the poorest materials.

But equal levels of craftsmanship.
I suppose.

It's a different craft, isn't it?

What they were doing
was very beautiful,

and they were very skilled,
but this is a different craft.

Despite the baronial scale,
this building still feels domestic,

thanks, I think,
to its wibbly handmade nature.

Although it still needs

to be honoured with some crafted
wibbly Ed-made furniture.

It's hard to know how to furnish
a space, so we thought...

Yes, I can see that!

It sort of suggests though, Ed,
that the next and final

remaining thing for you to do
is to make some...

I can't wait. I can't wait!

Yes, we're all waiting for that.

It needs big chic sofas. He's
got some really interesting designs.

We're now getting to that point,
which is good. Yes.

I didn't think
you would pull this off.

Ye of little faith!

So, this floor, which wasn't here,
this is earth, is that right?

Yes. It is.

The pressed earth floor comprises
sand, straw and clay, dug up from

the nearby fields, with a hardening
topcoat of linseed oil and beeswax.

Underfloor heated. Yes.
And these are your stones.

I view it as sort of the centre of
the building. It has a different...

Such a very rigid
and demanding quality,

compared to the wandering nature
of the split chestnut. Yes.

If you look at the colours
of the stones...

And then you look outside,
it's all in keeping.

More coherent as a result. Yes. And
the kitchen, too, is lovely, homely.

Wood burner, and a post.

Although the post itself
is very, very unusual, Ed. Yes.

It started out as one thing?

Yes, that is one tree, but it
has been split, cleft, exactly.

The trunk was split into four,
and then clamped back together.

An engineering experiment,
open and seemingly light,

but strong enough
to support the floor above.

What I really like about it
is that it has this space.

You see through it. So it suddenly
isn't this sort of lump.

What's this?

That's our calendar. Turn it from
the top. We just keep adding to it.

And it goes both ways?

Yes, well it's a prototype, Kevin,

but I would like to have one that
you could wind from just one end,

but you have to change the handle,

so you keep winding it
and you will see history.

If I wind back 10 years,
perhaps I will see a slab.

It's wonderful.

Other people buy a small book
in which to write things,

but I like that. It's analogue.

Ed's wild designs
are practical, too.

He made the worktops from sycamore,

a wood with supposedly
antibacterial qualities.

The supports are
the familiar split chestnut.

Having a circular counter...
If you come this way, walk round it

and you just follow it round,
there is no hard...

To the sink to do the washing up!
You can do that later!

But the sink itself is also curved.
That follows the same curve.

That's not a common thing, is it?

A great big Belfast sink
with a curved edge to it.

No, it is unusual.

The stove, though, a more familiar
rectangular shape. That's kind of...

That looks very new.

A family that we've known for
many, many years make those stoves.

Seriously? I love that the one thing
you buy that's new in the house,

the one bit of bling,

still actually has a very
strong personal connection.

It's great. It's great.

Not everything, though,
has the same degree of finish.

What's behind the door?, That's
the... That's the sitting room.

That's the sitting room in there,
Kevin.

But at the moment,
it is the workshop. Yes, I see.

That's not a sitting room,
that's a spares store.

All the little bits
that didn't quite make it.

Every bit of the house
is sort of here, almost.

You never know when it might come
in useful though. That's your motto.

When I was last here, this was
as it is - beautiful.

But this is... Actually,
this is very different up here.

Flooring is down. The balcony is in.

This is quite...

This is quite a special moment,
isn't it, in the building, this?

So we now see almost entirely land,
a little sky.

As opposed to...

Actually, probably three quarters
sky and a little sliver of land.

I noticed that.
That's a very interesting change.

Tell me, up here,
how many have you got -

one, two, three bedrooms there?

Three. And the bathroom.

Two that side. Five.

My question here is,
you've been building for ten years,

you started building when they were
kids and they're now...

The youngest is 17.

So it's not long before you find
yourselves with quite

a lot of empty bedrooms quite
a lot of the time.

Has this happened too late?

No. It's hard to, sort of...

..talk about that concept of,

"Oh, you've built your house and
they've all left."

It doesn't really matter, does it?

The experience of them growing up

and it all happening around them
I think is incredibly valuable.

Can you see a time
when one of them moves in here

and you're down in the...?
Absolutely.

I mean, there's no reason why
we should be hanging around in here

if they have families,
or a few of them. Whatever.

I think the future just takes
care of itself.

Things that'll happen...
We don't fret about that, do we?

So all this time, Ed has, it seems,
been building an adaptable home

to suit the family both now and down
through the generations.

That long view, taking time to
think, has defined this project.

This house is more than a home.
They want it to be their legacy.

At this point, I normally ask people
how much they've spent

and how long it took, but I have the
feeling you have the right

to tick the "not applicable" box
in this case.

Although you did start by saying,

"We think we have about ?100,000 to
spend on this."

Do you have a notion of how
much you have spent?

To be honest with you,

we've never actually just gone
through counting it up.

We tend to spend
when we can afford it.

So this is living within your means.
Yes. It is, yes.

That does mean it takes longer,

but it means that it feels
comfortable, what we're doing.

It's not scary.

So you spent, obviously,
the original 100,000.

That's gone, presumably.
Yeah. Yeah.

You spent money from income,

but how have you earned the income
looking after pigs?

Well, I do get little jobs here
and there.

I designed things for people
along the way, so that's helpful.

So what happens now to the dugout?
Does it get rented out or what?

Yeah. We would really like people to
be able to come

and experience how it is to be here.

I think it would be really
fun to share that with people.

In the meantime, the small holding
continues to feed you. Yes.

We don't... We're not big spenders.
No, I guessed that.

In fact, the house is furnished

and decorated with the work of both
family and friends, in keeping with

their passion for keeping things
personal, hand-crafted and slow.

Rowena, what sacrifices, if any,
have you made in the past ten years?

What do you miss?
Oh, I don't miss anything.

That's a good answer, isn't it?

What is there to miss?

Holidays.

We've got animals.

We're tied because of a lifestyle
that we've chosen.

So it's not a tie, then?
No. We're not tied, it's a choice.

We don't really have that
yearning to get away.

Yearning to stay!

I feel pretty happy with things.

Yeah, I feel pretty happy
with things.

Has the building shaped and
changed you?

Has it changed your family?

Has it changed the dynamic between
you and the kids

since you moved here?

It's bound to has changed us,
isn't it?

But you want to know how,
and I don't know how.

You tell me.

Like everything, it's happened
slowly and you haven't noticed.

I supposed timing-wise, moving into
here from the dugout, it was timely,

because they were getting to an age
where they needed their own space.

From each other and from us,
and vice versa. So that was great.

Moving up here and there being space
was very exciting for everybody.

I was going to ask you what happens
when the project's finished,

but first of all,

I don't think it's going to be ever
completely finished. Secondly...

What's the confines of the project
as well? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's the grand universal
project of life, isn't it?

Maybe it is, yeah.

I had wondered,
over the past decade,

whether this project would
ever finish,

but now I realise that Ed and Rowena
have never really wanted it to,

never really intended it to end.

After all, why,
when life itself is defined by,

bound up with the ideas
of craftsmanship and utility,

by the acts of making and doing,
why would you want it to ever end?

You know, it's lessons like that
that, over the past ten years,

have made it such a privilege to
follow this project.

Come on. Come on.