Llanelly House Restored

It's one of Wales' finest historic houses.

This tarnished gem may have seen better days

but it's a treasure trove of secrets waiting to be revealed.

Who knows what's going to turn up!

It is quite a Sherlock Holmes adventure.

But Llanelly House isn't just grotty,

it's actually on the point of collapse.

Oh, look at that, urgh! Actually quite disgusting.

And this faded beauty is going to have to get her glad rags on

to turn heads again.

When they walk out of this room, they've got to go, "Wow!"

It's been a ten year marathon

and costs are threatening to go through the roof!

You're dealing with public money, we have to finish on time

and to budget, mainly to budget.

And that's going to be the biggest issue.

And everyone is going to feel the heat.

-Do you ever get a bit grumpy?

-Very, very often.

There will be testing times ahead.

Can they keep their eyes on the prize?

I'm hoping that people will feel that there's something

special in Llanelli again.

Like so many towns in Wales, Llanelli had a pretty rubbish 20th century.

Had a few highs but it was mostly lows

and it's here in the town centre that you can really see

the scars, you can sense the negativity and the depression,

the low self esteem, but Llanelli has, at its heart,

a bit of an architectural lucky charm, a talisman.

And we're all very much hoping that the rebuilding,

the refurbishment, the renaissance of Llanelly House will not only

symbolise but also kick-start the resurgence of Llanelli town.

Back in 2003, the final of the BBC Restoration series

put Llanelly House well and truly on the map.

Hello, welcome to Restoration.

Our first building was built on the cusp of a new era, Llanelly House.

Ah, look!

Careful!

Look...Renaissance, a Renaissance view in the heart of South Wales.

This is unbelievably good, actually.

I mean, this is serious Grade I listing.

Run down it may be

but there's a good reason for its Grade I listing.

Very few buildings of this type and quality survive.

It's the finest early 18th century town house in Wales,

dating from 1714, the dawn of the Georgian era.

A decade ago on Restoration, I was Llanelly House's champion!

The most compelling reason why Llanelly House should be

restored and saved is the fact that if you don't, I will buy it,

I will paint it purple, I will cover the roof in pink fur fabric

and I will sell it to Kylie for £65 billion!

Being on Restoration was very exciting.

I think it made Llanelli clearer about what a gem

exists in the centre of the town.

It pointed out to people outside

that this project deserves support.

It's taken years of struggle.

The county council helped by closing the road to traffic that

thundered by, funding of £6 million was finally secured, more than

half from the lottery, and nearly two million in European grants.

Llanelly House fits into a wider town centre regeneration.

But too much is at stake for it to be a mere ornament.

It has to serve the community, attract visitors

and boost the economy.

Devising an end use that is going

to stack up in terms of community

benefit, is harmonious with the

character of the house and is going

to be economically viable is really

the crucial, the crucial target.

In short, it has to become an attraction of national importance.

I admire the ambition and share the enthusiasm...

But more than a century of abuse and neglect have left an almighty mess!

And they've got an enormous task on their hands.

It just seems in such an incredibly unfriendly place.

You know, we're right next to a shopping centre.

It just does not seem to be where you would want to put

such a beautiful house.

No. And that...it was not put in that situation originally.

I mean, what we are looking at is a great country house that has

ended up in the middle of a town

because the town has grown around it.

We have to think back to the 18th century and earlier, when

there was this church here, which has been here since the Middle Ages.

There was a village over there on our right,

-where there's now car-parks and roads.

-Yeah.

-And that was Llanelli.

And then, on this side over here was a great park

and in that park stood this great house.

So, it is a country house, with a village and church attached,

now engulfed in a town.

Llanelli was made prosperous by coal mining, tinplate and steel.

Like most towns that owe their existence

to the Industrial Revolution,

it's largely Victorian

but Llanelly House is of an entirely different architectural vintage.

That's doing such a good job at looking early 18th century,

-isn't it?

-Yes.

-It's talking the language exquisitely.

This is quite restrained, this is quite dignified,

this is quite classical.

It is quite restrained and dignified and it has some extraordinary

extra features about it that, again, classical...

On the parapet there's a series of urns, stone urns.

Now, I mean, these are pure classical, early 18th century urns.

So, they were trying to achieve that.

And then there are these wooden cornices, on each of these areas

that break forward there is a timber cornice.

Again, a lot of classical detail.

Well, you see, I think those are genius and I'm so pinching that.

-Yeah.

-I'm going to do that cos it's a wonderful way

of focusing your decorative resources, isn't it?

Things like the lead work on the hopper, things like the pilasters,

things like these funny bits of cornice.

-It's so beautifully arranged, it's almost symphonic, isn't it?

-Yes.

Not too much, not too little.

And then it's all capped off with these urns.

There is no parallel for it, there is no other building

that we have ever found that has this same sort of detail

and so the suspicion is that, in fact,

it's a brilliant local builder-cum-architect.

-We'd love to know who it was.

-We've got no idea?

We have no name, no.

The house is part of a town centre regeneration, costing £60 million.

They've restored some grand Victorian chapels

but the effect is rather ruined by what they've plonked next door.

This bland, identikit architecture

isn't my cup of tea, sorry, Llanelli.

I think it rather demeans the town.

So, I hope the house is shown a bit more tender, loving care.

The man who's grasped the nettle is new project director Craig Hatto.

He arrives with an impressive CV.

He's helped to develop visitor attractions like

The Scotch Whiskey Experience in Edinburgh

and the Jorvik Viking Centre in York.

But, as well as creative vision,

this project needs a leader with a keen business brain.

I was taken on board to actually create the vision that will

sustain itself for years to come.

You will see so much happen in the next two years, erm,

it will be very, very, very fast paced.

May, 2011. At last the contractors move in.

Richard Scott Jones is an archaeologist

appointed by the historic monuments body Cadw,

another of the project's funders.

His job, to record the house's past and ensure the builders don't

destroy anything of value, so that nothing is lost to history.

Actually, yeah, can you go in?

Cos it looks like it's resting on there...

For me, it's working it out, it's working the story out all the time.

Erm, and this house is so complex!

Now, anything he finds could slow the project down.

And he's already uncovered what looks like walls

and steps belonging to a much earlier building.

It's time delay, time delay all the time.

Even though everybody's always interested in it, they say,

"Oh, wow! That's amazing!"

But behind this other side of people there's a,

"Damn, damn, that's a delay!"

And, of course, delays are moneys and budgets and times for everybody.

The conservation architect in charge of the restoration is Sophie Teague.

Like me, she's passionate about the Georgian period

and intrigued by the house's secret history.

We always had that debate of why is this room called the Great Hall.

Great Hall is, you know, a medieval concept.

Architectural CSI is what Sophie does for a living.

We thought we had a wonderful

Georgian 1714 house

and we clearly have a much older house

that's just lying in wait just behind the surface.

It's amazing!

Looking at it,

we're going to have to re-write the history of Llanelly House.

But there's a history to the people who walked these corridors too.

How did they live?

I want to unravel the domestic architecture of this place.

The house is being restored to its heyday , around 1760, the era of the

seventh Baronet, Sir Thomas Stepney and his wife, Lady Elizabeth.

Sir Thomas has no truck with playing the country squire,

he's a businessman, a pioneer of Llanelli coal mining

and the trappings of money and power are stamped all over his study.

You must have been blown away when you found that!

Yes, this is pretty wonderful.

It's the panel that belongs above us here.

I can tell that from the green paint.

But even that had been nailed over with a panel of plywood.

Yeah.

And so, when we took it off and realised that this is an original

1714 landscape, seascape painting on the timber of the fire place.

And this was done in situ.

I mean, this isn't a painting that they bought in a gallery or

-whatever or from a artist.

-No.

The artist would have gone up a ladder

and actually painted that there.

Yeah, on the bare wood,

you can even see the knots graining through in some places.

-It's a bit like a commercial, isn't it?

-Yes.

This picture is the first thing you see as you come into the room.

So, Sir Thomas wants you to understand a lot about him.

He wants you to understand

that he's got a very successful shipping business.

You know, Sir Tom is doing a Sir Alan Sugar,

and that's for sure.

He certainly is, yes.

And everybody who came in here would have known

-they were in the presence of a powerful man.

-Yeah.

And behind this powerful, successful man, an even more formidable woman.

Lady Elizabeth is descended from noble Carmarthenshire stock

and considers herself a cut above.

Upstairs, evidence of her softer,

more romantic side is being uncovered beneath layers of paint.

The antechamber to her bedroom is a beautifully intimate painted space.

It's a delicate scheme, in shades of grey but with overdoors

adorned by wondrously soft and subtle mythological figures.

This is just a treasure, this room.

-I love it, love it to death!

-It's awesome!

This is setting the scene for what's beyond. For what's beyond, I think.

Cos this is...right, OK.

Now, we're going to have to use the B word, aren't we?

-Yes, definitely.

-This is a boudoir.

It is a boudoir.

-In here, she's talking about pleasure.

-She's talking about love.

She's talking about Venus.

-Well, Pan is over the door.

-Well, exactly.

Perhaps Aphrodite over the other door.

But, I mean, that's instantly saying that it's all getting little

bit more wild, isn't it?

I think it's fascinating

and so illuminating on 18th century society,

that we always had this vision of women being very subjugated

and very much under the thumb of men

but actually they did make spaces for themselves that were

intensely original and had a lot of personality to them.

She has put her desires, her stamp in this space.

But, of course, the really exciting thing,

the thing that is making the hair on our neck stand up is

the fact that there could be something in the middle.

-So much more of it.

-There very often is something bang in the middle.

-Yeah.

-And that could be just a little,

tiny thing or it could even be a big scene.

Yeah, I mean, we are, fingers crossed, we are

hoping that we have whole panels.

Suddenly, with this, history just got personal.

-Oh, so personal.

-We've just met Lady Elizabeth.

-So intimate...yeah.

Downstairs, Richard the archaeologist is making more exciting finds.

A poppy motif from an Elizabethan fireplace

and the bric-a-brac of everyday life.

Bottles...

and clay pipes that builders threw away

when the house was remodelled around 1680.

Even oyster shells that they discarded after lunch.

But, most startlingly, something that makes him

rethink the whole history of the house.

It looks like a great rockery to me.

THEY LAUGH

I mean, obviously it's a bit of a surprise to lift up

a Georgian floor and find this. What is it?

-I think it's pre-house. We're talking medieval, the cobbling.

-Really?

Definitely medieval, the cobbled surface,

but then at some stage, the Tudor house has come into the area...

Built on top of it.

-And then a Jacobean house. There's been constant continuity.

-Yeah.

I think it's very possible we do have the remnants of monastic land

with agricultural buildings

and then some of the Crown have had the property, put it out to auction,

local gentry bought it and that's when we get the beginning...

And so they convert it into a manor house.

This is Richard's best guess of how the house looked

when it was a 16th century Tudor manor.

So, Llanelly House wasn't a Georgian new-build on a greenfield site.

It was an ingenious and thrifty reworking of a much older house.

And this is the beauty of Llanelly House really.

We do have this 18th century narrative on the house,

but suddenly, it has a very, very long past.

Yeah, deeper, darker, much more complicated past.

Sophie has her own headaches to contend with.

Her goal is to save as much of the original house as possible,

but some parts are beyond rescue.

So you can see here, all of these...

Look at that. All these fungi growing on this timber,

and it's terribly, terribly rotten.

I mean, it's absolutely sodden,

and it's really not performing anymore.

Hence, it's propped.

This is going to have to be cut out because it's absolutely beyond.

I mean, I can put my fingers right in there.

Oh, look at that. Yeuch!

It's actually quite disgusting.

So, yeah, we have a lot of rot in this project.

The house must be rain-proofed and saved from the top down.

Site manager Neil Griffiths and his team of builders have rescued

the roof from collapse by replacing rotten timbers with steel beams.

Almost every other area is quite precarious.

Well, if you look around, it's rather dangerous to look at.

Yeah, I mean, we're barely safe now.

There's no work on site in this area until we make each bay safe

as we're going along.

So, it's a pretty enormous task.

These stately urns carved from the finest Bath stone

are the final flourish on the house's Classical facade.

But time and the elements have taken their toll and, over the years,

botched concrete repairs have caused them to crack even more.

As you can see, this bit, this sort of wedge,

has literally fallen out before we started the process and so we know

they're in quite a fragile position, but this piece will be saved.

There will be a dowel put into it

and it put back into the urn.

It still fits perfectly.

-It will repair up.

-Yes, definitely.

It looks worse than what it is, I think.

The entire project is about holding the old

and the new in a very delicate balance.

It's really not at all straightforward

because everybody involved in this project is teetering on a tightrope

between, on one side, creating a historical restoration

that is going to keep the purists happy.

And then, on the other side,

the generation of a 21st century visitor attraction

that is going to capture the imagination,

that's going to be bringing people into Llanelli.

But also, it's going to be future-proofed.

This area here is very, very interesting to us because...

'Project director Craig's vision

'is to create a hi tech visitor experience.

'He's briefing the branding and creative consultant

'who's been drafted in to make it real.'

-We've got to do something really exciting.

-End on a high.

Yeah, end on a high.

When they walk out of this room, they've got to go, "Wow!"

And people have to see that to go,

"What's going on in there. Got to go to that. Must see."

Anyway, let's go through to the next area.

The visitor is at the heart of the experience and they will remain at

the heart of the experience, because, without that, the house falls flat.

You get a beautiful restoration but it falls and it dies.

It's very hard to fault Craig's energy

and the sheer number of ideas he's got bubbling away.

He wants to inspire the people of Llanelli by reminding them

of their history. But I do wonder about the project's focus

and its appeal to the community it's serving.

When you look down this vista, you will see a series of portraits.

Firstly, of the heroes of the house,

the people who really generated this place over the years.

And then, as you go round the building

and through the experience to the other side,

you meet the heroes of the community,

the people that this house spawned over years and years,

who not just remained in Llanelli,

but extended around the world and had a major effect on the world.

The whole experience will finish on you,

as in who you are as well,

and how you fit into the bigger picture.

OK, I'm finally getting a handle on Craig's big idea.

Genealogy.

Hoping to cash in on the vogue for online family history,

and, of course,

the popularity of TV programmes like Who Do You Think You Are?

Craig's dream is to make Llanelly House

the national genealogy centre for Wales.

We had to find something that was unique,

that people could hook into on a national level

and that became genealogy.

There's so many different people working on this from

content developers to graphic designers to interpretation designers

to object managers, and it all brings it all together.

Well, what's more compelling to me

is the genealogy of the house itself,

the tortured history of its muddled facade.

Take a step back before the scaffolding went up.

Look at how the front door has been moved and the two pilasters

have been shunted down to create Victorian shop fronts.

The priority now is to recreate the load-bearing masonry that the

Victorians removed. This wonky window isn't down to subsidence.

There's just hardly any wall holding it up.

For the moment, steel beams

and props are all that is keeping this house on its feet.

Victorians and the Edwardians took out all the masonry

and replaced it with a few...

cast iron columns and a lot of glass.

-I mean, that's where the building REALLY went wrong.

-Yeah, absolutely.

You lose the form.

You lose the spaces within

and you are relying on two tiny point loads.

Basically, all of Llanelly House is on stilettos?

-Yeah.

-It was, wasn't it? This is a 40-tonne lovely lady,

lovely though she is,

putting her on stilettos is never going to be a good idea.

Yeah, absolutely.

I don't know how there wasn't a sudden collapse.

For more than a century and a half,

these shop fronts have been part of the Llanelli townscape.

Though alien to the original Georgian house, the shops, too,

have a secret history waiting to be revealed.

This panel has, um,

been shown to reveal quite an exciting phase of this building.

So, although it wasn't blocked up,

it obviously hasn't been opened for a very long time until we came along.

These wine and spirit labels are like fossils from a hidden world, frozen in time.

The remnants of Ma Grave's Wine Shop give a tantalising glimpse

of old Llanelli's drinking habits.

"Medoc Bordeaux.

"Shipped and bottled by Margrave Bros, established 1858."

The house's Victorian era is intriguing,

but it's a century earlier, the heyday of the house around 1760,

that really fascinates me.

So I've come to the Carmarthenshire Archives to hunt for more clues

about Sir Thomas and Lady Stepney.

This is the inventory from 1764 you might be interesting in.

Oh, great. Thank you.

This is absolutely fascinating

because it's an inventory of all the stuff that

was in Llanelly House in 1764 and this is really

a list of everything that the Stepneys felt made them as people.

It's all about the very ostentatious things, the very showy things,

but nothing that's got any kind of associations with intellect or culture.

In fact, I'm beginning to suspect

they're a little bit Hyacinth Bucket,

because what he's really focusing on in here...

And this is all in Sir Thomas Stepney's hand himself.

He's not even got his PA to do this.

He's been walking round the house and actually writing it out -

..are the things that are the most important

and the real jewel in the crown, as far as he's concerned,

is the "tea table china with the arms - came to Llanelli in 1762."

You couldn't buy this stuff off the shelf.

Porcelain was a miraculous substance like nothing

made in Europe at the time and fabulously expensive.

Wealthy families sent their coats of arms to China

and waited two years for the porcelain to be shipped back.

And, of course, this is really, really important to him.

Every single little coffee cup

will have had a really very, very high value to it.

This would have been in-your-face real showing off stuff

the minute you walked into the room.

The Stepneys' armorial dinner service had more than 360 pieces.

Around a third has been tracked down to a collector in Washington DC

and brought back to Wales at a cost of nearly

a quarter of a million pounds.

I've come to Somerset to meet the period design team recreating

some of Llanelly House's interiors.

And this is the model they're using for Lady Stepney's bed.

Small, because in the mid-18th century,

gentry couples usually slept apart.

Back then, the simple mahogany frame would have cost around £10

but the fabrics, these very plush drapes,

valances and cornices, would be nearer 200.

The point of the bedroom was to show off the material, wasn't it?

-The material was THE most expensive thing in the room.

-It was, yeah.

-It's almost a link with fashion.

-Yeah.

You've got these very, very beautiful materials

that she would have been wearing, I'm sure.

-Yeah.

-And so this is it?

-Yes.

The linings will all be in gold taffeta, that's this one,

to contrast and to show off the beautiful red damask on the face,

-which will make it look splendid.

-Yeah.

Becky, you've got really under the skin of Lady Stepney,

-doing this, haven't you?

-It's been fascinating.

-Is she possessing you?

-Do you need help?

-Almost, almost.

Yes, she would have been an incredibly fashionable lady

for her time in that particular area of Wales.

We know that the Stepneys had a property in Spitalfields in London.

We know that she enjoyed going to Bath

to take the waters for her health.

Two of the most important cities in Britain at the time.

And she would have brought back from there all the ideas

that were happening at the time.

She would have brought them back to Llanelli and would have been

one of the first women in that area to have the amazing luxuries.

So we know, yes, she was the leader of the pack.

-Gosh, leader of the social set.

-Yes, that's right.

I'm obsessed by the boudoir.

I think the boudoir is such a wonderful survival.

Almost certainly somewhere where she got dressed

and possibly performed other intimate functions.

Absolutely, yes.

In order to cater for those things,

we've bought this commode which has to be restored.

It's being restored at the moment. It's got a pewter bowl inside it

and it needs to have some upholstery around it to make a...

-That's a frightening thought!

-..a padded seat.

But, I mean, these were grisly items, really,

when you think about it, because pity the pure servant

that, you know, had to do something about that.

-It is literally just a...

-Yeah, yeah, but what if...?

I mean, if you didn't have that, what would you do?

-There's always the window.

-Exactly!

LAUGHTER

The traditional building arts on show at Llanelly House now

are no less refined than the 18th-century artefacts

that once graced its rooms.

It sounds like he's giving the roof

a very vigorous Scandinavian massage.

-What is he doing there?

-The lead is a Code 6 lead.

-Yeah.

And it takes a lot of work to beat it and dress it down.

You've got to do it in small stages,

then go back on yourself half a dozen, a dozen times.

But I would imagine... There's nothing complicated about that.

I would imagine that's exactly how the original roof was done.

That is the original work and it is the only way you could do it.

There is no modern machinery you can do it with.

That's something that really strikes me about the site.

There's so little machinery

because everything has to be done specifically and specially by hand.

Most of the timber, it was all hand carved.

Any of the carving has got to be hand done.

The machinery isn't out there, really, to do it.

-But you quite like that, don't you?

-It's a challenge.

Yeah, I think this roof is such a...

such a good example of the madness of Llanelly House.

There is some guy that's been asked to build an Italian, you know,

very gracious, very classical-looking building

with a flat roof and yet

it's in one of the wettest parts of northern Europe.

So they are trying to think of ways of keeping it drained

and so they do this, they actually turn it into

the opening sequence of Coronation Street.

But whilst there is progress on the roof, factors like rot,

archaeological finds and unforeseen structural problems

have slowed work down.

The house was due to open to the public in December 2012.

Now the timetable has slipped by at least three months.

I'd go for 31st March.

We will be near or as close to that as we can possibly get.

And the contractors know that?

The contractors definitely know that.

What do they say? Do they just go, "Mmmm,"

or do they go, "Yes, sir, of course, sir!"

No. They... We are all answerable in different ways.

It would be detrimental to the project

if it carries on and on and on.

You are dealing with public money

and I've got to keep that on track and I have to account for that

and if we are going to be late, there has to be...

We have to be answerable for that, so we have to finish on time

and to budget, mainly to budget.

And that is going to be the biggest issue.

Yes, of course delays are bound to happen

on big and complicated projects,

but the contractor's worried too

that Craig and his team are rather slow to make key decisions.

Nothing seems to be moving fast enough.

It's very frustrating when you go into somewhere

with all these unforeseens and you can't get answers quick enough,

which has a knock-on effect for the other trades

and for the works to carry on, and you do tend to do a lot of screaming

and shouting then and trying to explain to people

why you need this decision urgently.

You are the one that's got to carry the can on this.

-It is a lot of pressure involved, yes.

-Do you...

-I mean, do you ever get a bit grumpy?

-Very, very often.

Miles away, in the peace of the Carmarthenshire hills,

stonemason Ollie Coe is making progress.

He's hard at work on the puzzle of the urns,

piecing cracked fragments of Bath stone back together.

And, where concrete and water damage have dealt a mortal blow,

he is carving new sections from scratch.

I'm confident they'll look terrific at the end of the day and...

I'm really looking forward to seeing them

with their full front scaffolding removed

and they should look like the cherry on the cake.

At the house, too, craftsmen are hard at work.

They have turned one room into a joinery workshop

to get a move on with the wooden panels

that will line most of the rooms.

Out go modern materials like concrete

and in comes lime render to give the house a living, breathing skin.

And this is how to get the posh look on a budget.

The technique they are using is called ashlar work.

It looks like cheating,

but this is exactly how they did it in the 18th century.

This is a bit like an 18th-century stone cladding.

It's really keeping-up-with-the-Joneses stuff.

The scorelines are done just hours after the float coat is put on.

They have to get the marks in before it's completely gone off,

but not straightaway when it is too soft,

so it's this fine line between...

Well, it's perfection. The craftsmanship is fantastic.

You see the building come back alive again.

It's spectacular.

The house is owned and run

by the Carmarthenshire Heritage Regeneration Trust.

The chief executive is Claire Deacon and she and her trustees

are guardians of the project's funding,

so this is where the buck stops.

Having got her hands on the Stepney's armorial china service,

top of her wish list now

is a portrait of the eighth Baronet, Sir John Stepney

by a superstar of 18th-century painting, Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Horrible question, I know, but how much is it?

Well, you know I'd rather not say! LAUGHTER

-Mime it, no-one will know.

-What I will say is

we've aimed to raise £50,000 for its purchase,

but we're also trying to raise another £50,000

to undertake activities for children to explore their own identity

and sense of understanding and confidence, which will be

centred around the understanding of the Stepney portrait.

I think the key thing that I want Llanelly House to bring

to Llanelli is just a sense of vibrancy and activity and busyness.

I want people to come in the front door and to be...

You know, have a sense of awe of,

"I didn't realise it was quite this historic."

But, in many ways, you got the toughest job because here we are,

we are in this wonderfully exciting, creative, buzzy building site,

but you've got to actually make it work, to make it viable.

Is that a life-shortening expedience?

Well, it certainly keeps me awake at four o'clock in the morning

and I don't want to be doing that for the next year!

OK, now, the good news is there is

a little bit of Llanelly House that's actually finished,

but, perversely, it is a bit the public will never see - the roof.

Although, of course, without the roof being watertight,

nothing else can happen in the rest of the house.

Downstairs, some jobs are getting done, but, gosh, it's slow going.

When I was here last, the project was already three months late.

Back then, project director Craig was aiming to open on March 31st.

Now the timetable has slipped again to a summer opening.

It's better to be in summer than it is in winter for something like this

because it would have less of an impact

if it was opened in midwinter, for instance.

Not too many people want to

come to major visitor attractions at that time.

The contractors are feeling the heat.

Site manager Neal and his team are keen to get the job finished,

but they are having to accommodate their client's changing plans.

Save us machining it?

They might as well machine it to size.

Craig is determined to future-proof the house,

hence the jumble of cables, but details of his hi tech vision,

including the costs, have yet to be finalised.

And until the builders know where all these wires need to go,

they can't get on with other parts of the job.

We can't carry 20 carpenters when there is only work for five or six.

So we know we've got work for 20,

but until we can actually get into certain areas and do certain things,

then obviously we cannot accommodate them.

One area that has been rather neglected is the stairwell.

It should be the centrepiece of the house, but it's occupied now

by a mean, poky staircase inserted by the Edwardians.

The original oak stairs led to a grandiose sash window

with a classical balcony thrown in as a final flourish.

Get a prop under it, Neal.

You need to get a couple of props on the short ones now

so you can rest it down gently.

At last, it's time to throw out the impostor staircase.

It's been a long time coming. When this is out, I'll feel a lot better.

It's progress, but they are still way behind schedule.

The more days you lose, obviously,

it just pushes the target a bit further away.

I'll be very disappointed if we miss our target.

I'll be extremely disappointed from a personal point of view,

let alone the company

because myself and Neal, we take pride in getting the job done

on time and that's what we intend doing.

So, it's out with the botched "improvements"

that are the bane of Llanelly House.

Nothing embodies the house's classical splendour

more than the urns now being restored to its parapets -

the glories of Greece and Rome conjured up

on the Llanelli skyline.

Well, they are delicate really. Handling is always a bit of an issue.

What we don't want to do is damage them at this stage,

having repaired them.

We are lifting them over the top of the stainless steel rods

and bedding them on a lime mortar.

I hope that they won't need to be looked at for many years to come.

So, what look are they going for for inside Llanelly House?

15 miles west down the coast, there are some intriguing hints.

This is the Great House at Laugharne.

It is a very close architectural blood relation of Llanelly House,

whether it's a kid brother

or whether it's son-of, we're not entirely sure,

but what is important is that wherever you look,

there are visual clues that can help

with the missing bits of the Llanelly House jigsaw.

I'm feeling a bit like a time-traveller.

I'm feeling a bit as if we have moved forward in time

sufficiently to see Llanelly House finished,

cos I'm imagining that this is the sort of effect

-we're going for in some of the rooms.

-Yeah, absolutely.

It's got the Georgian atmosphere.

Not just the kit of parts, but that sort of feeling

that you are in the minimalist Georgian dream world and, internally,

very regular, very flat, masculine.

It's almost like early minimalism.

The Great House at Laugharne

lacks the self-importance of Llanelly House.

There are no urns here,

but those pilasters framing the front door

and the carved wooden cornice above share the same design DNA.

What are the things that, as far as you are concerned,

make this building the same hand as Llanelly House?

Looking at it, you can see the genetic footprint everywhere,

so if you take these archways, the keystones over the top

are absolutely the same as some of the archways

that we have at Llanelly House.

And really, you can't fake that.

As far as you are concerned, as the Miss Marple of Georgian architecture,

these are, you know, this is handwriting.

These are brushstrokes on a painting or...

You know, these are fingerprints

-and we have a date with this place, which is...?

-1715.

-And Llanelly House is...?

-Is 1714.

The kit of parts is definitely here for us.

The pilasters and the balusters and newel posts

and so on and so forth, we're able to take and absolutely replicate.

At last, the Llanelly House scaffolding is coming down

to reveal a Georgian facade that looks good enough to eat.

Inside, in Lady Stepney's boudoir,

another striptease is nearing its final act.

16 coats of paint have been removed,

the final layer painstakingly scraped away with a scalpel.

They have found four distinct colour schemes, but no sign of what

I'd been so badly hoping to see - large lavishly decorated panels.

I'm quite surprised by what you have uncovered.

When... With that little bit that you found before,

we were all a bit excited by that, but...

But the big thing for me,

and I think for you, is that there's nothing in the middle of the panel.

We were all assuming they would be a frame

and then there'd be a scene or a motif or something in the middle.

Particularly based on the fact of the stuff over the doors and so on.

I mean, it is a very simple, simple design.

But what we've actually uncovered here -

the corners here, I think,

look pretty rubbish.

Do you know what I mean?

-Compared to that.

-Compared to the over doors.

Those over doors are so soft and romantic and beautiful,

but unbelievably sophisticated.

These are very spiky.

I think, looking at it and only cos I used to do that kind of thing,

I think it's based on stencil.

I think there's a stencil been used for the basic outline

and then the highlight and the shadow have been put in by hand,

freehand, but with none of the beautiful gradation of tone

that you get with the over doors.

Those panels are due to be cleaned as part of this whole process.

Is it too late to cover them back up?

Talk to my assistants about that. After six weeks scraping away.

You know, I've got some really nice wallpaper you could put up.

The speed of the build has picked up, but not enough.

Craig's plans for the visitor experience are,

to a large extent, dictating the pace.

His proposed national genealogy centre for Wales will have

at its centrepiece an interactive globe, mapping family histories.

Visitors would leave biometric fingerprints.

There are even plans for a DNA testing station.

Craig is pressing ahead with the Time Lapse Room -

a 360 degree immersive audiovisual experience.

You hear a... HE COUGHS

"Well, actually, I'm going to tell you about Llanelly House."

It's one of the portraits starts to talk and takes over the sequence.

The lights go down and the sun and moon start shooting past

backwards and forwards as if you start to run back in time.

It means paying for actors and green-screen filming.

Well, with all this CGI and digital trickery,

I worry he's got a touch of the Steven Spielbergs.

Well, back on terra firma, Sophie has found a craftsman to make

the stairs she's been planning and drawing for years.

This staircase is going to be the centrepiece of this building.

The staircase carving just gives it that wow factor, doesn't it?

The stairs are being crafted in Haverfordwest from solid oak.

These are the timbers for the newels.

We can see where the turnings are going to be,

and try to match it to the grain as best as possible.

No more castles in the air.

It's a joy to see Sophie's ideas made real.

It's April 2013. My first time back in a while.

Well, I can honestly say that this is the first time I've come here

and stood here and felt that there might be a bit of Georgian light

at the end of the Georgian tunnel.

That is looking quite credible.

In fact, that is looking incredible.

But what's the inside like?

This is the bit where I'm supposed to talk about

how finished everything's looking.

About how it's, you know, less than six months until it opens

and isn't it all very exciting?

But it really doesn't look very finished at all.

There are bits upstairs that,

I suppose they give you a bit of a lift

because there's a radiator or there's some paint on the panelling

and there's maybe even a socket or two if you're really lucky.

What shocks me at the moment

is that not only is the building not terribly complete,

it's just the amount of cables.

The amount of dangling cables everywhere,

because it's obvious that so much of the resources,

so much of the time is going into the attractions.

It's going into the digital displays.

It's going into the sort of...

The faith in the technology is overwhelming.

I'm just a bit worried that it's overwhelming

the fundamental beauty of just finishing, restoring

and bringing this beautiful building back to life.

The big news is that project director Craig has left.

Now he's providing only very occasional consultancy.

And they're running out of money.

They've had to get an interest-free loan

of a quarter of a million pounds from the county council.

They've asked the Heritage Lottery Fund for an extra

660,000 on top of the 3.4 million they've already given,

but this has just been refused.

Are you running out of money in certain areas which means

that you actually have to raise funds to pay for things?

It does mean that our budget is starting to be used up, yeah.

Then you have to ask them for more funds as well.

-How does that...? That can't feel good.

-It's not great.

It's very difficult. It is very difficult.

It was a big all-singing, all-dancing

proposal originally, wasn't it?

Craig had a vision of something that was very techno heavy.

Have you had to get to a stage with all of this where you have

had to choose what the star of the show is

between the house and between what the house can offer?

I think the star of the show has to be the house.

I mean the house is what's special.

Without the house, none of this would be...

Are you having to do that on a daily basis with the budget?

Are you having to think about actually suddenly having

some of the bells and whistles for some of the digital things

less important than actually just making sure that the house

-is ready and open.

-Absolutely.

I think that one of the joys of what we're doing is

the tour around the house will be a guided tour.

-You'll have a guide that will take you round.

-Back to basics.

-Back to basics.

-Using a human being.

-How unusual.

-Oh, my goodness me.

This has always been your vision.

Are you disappointed that your vision has been compromised?

-No, it's a project. It's not my vision.

-No, but your...

Your big idea, this idea of somewhere that is very interactive,

that's very digital, that's very contemporary in its technology.

A lot of that is not now going to happen, is it?

Yes, it's one area that's been compromised.

The area that we're keeping down for a second marketing push will be

the genealogy aspect of it.

I wouldn't want to put that in straight away at this level.

But that was the jewel in your crown, wasn't it?

A year ago, that was going to be the thing that really made

-Llanelly House different.

-I agree.

-That's not going to happen.

-That will happen.

It won't happen at this moment in time.

You will have a project that has come together that the people will enjoy.

For how long that is, who knows?

How it morphs over the next few years, who knows?

But we've given something back to the nation that is an important piece,

which is the main structure, and looked at the history of the house.

How they carry that on as a business, as a sustainable business,

is now passed over to a trust.

-That's what...

-You're getting in your Jag and driving away very quickly.

-I'm off to...

-Whomph! I like that.

At least the house is coming together.

Its real wow factor,

the great Georgian staircase is finally sliding into place.

On.

We've been waiting for a very long time for this moment.

I'm absolutely overjoyed, cos you can see that it's the real thing.

It's been an absolute labour of love.

It's a magical day to see it actually come together.

It might seem a shame to stain that lovely oak,

but that's just how the Georgians liked it.

I'm hoping that people will feel that sense of splendour that

was once actually part of Llanelli town.

Just feel there's something special in Llanelli again.

They've gone public with a launch date in time for the October half term holidays,

and an opening ceremony on November 1st with Huw Edwards.

Now it's a race against time to hit the deadline.

It's autumn half term.

The doors are finally opened,

and I'm back to see the culmination of a decade of ambition and effort.

Yes, there've been setbacks and plenty of twists and turns,

so has it all been worth it?

Visits to the ground floor are free.

There's a charge for guided tours of the upper tiers.

The murals depict Aphrodite and Pan the God of fertility.

So this is quite a racy room,

and I believe that Lady Stepney was quite a racy little character.

So what's the verdict from the first local visitors?

It's fantastic. Really amazing.

We're so thrilled that it's actually opening to the public.

It's given Llanelli back its history, I think.

People will be proud of that and they'll want to share

and be part of that.

Just thrilled to bits. The place looks wonderful.

You've got an icon for central Llanelli of real quality.

It's got transformational powers, because it's that good.

The overall project cost has leapt from £6 million to £7 million.

That includes an extra grant of half a million in European funding

for a more hi tech relaunch in the spring.

The digital experience will roll out. That will enhance all the rooms.

It will provide research facilities for you to explore genealogy

and really encourage people to get more involved in their heritage.

You're from here.

You will see this so often, your family will see it,

your neighbours will see it, your friends will see it.

You've given something literally back to your own home community.

It's something I always talk about.

It's round the corner and everybody knows where it is.

It's a nice feeling. It's a lovely job.

It's hard to imagine it as it was to what it's like now.

You live and breathe a project.

It is emotional and you go on a huge journey, roller coaster.

It's a real wrench to let it go now.

It's a...it's a...

real project of the heart.

Well, what a marathon.

I think ten years is the longest I've ever followed a design project.

What a sense of achievement as well.

When you bear in mind that when I first saw this place it was

rubble, it was completely derelict, it was a write-off.

Now, surrounded by this very charming

recreated 18th century luxury, it's really seductive.

It really feels as if something lovely and warm

and personal has been achieved.

And it has.

It's very easy when you look at your town, when you look at your

community and you can compile a list of all the things you don't have.

But, actually, what Llanelli did was it understood that it had this.

It had Llanelly House. That's the point to me.

We live in a nation where every high street is the same,

so it's incredibly important to understand that

places like this are, weirdly, the future.

Yes, they're all about the past,

but by being about the past they say so very much about who we are,

and actually, I suppose, about who we want to be.

It's fascinating. It's extraordinary.

Come and see it for yourself.