Abbey Lane Restoration Home

Historic houses, both humble and grand,

have all played their part in the story of our nation.

But today many are at risk

and some in danger of being lost for ever.

I'm going to be following the fortunes of six properties

all facing their own struggle for survival.

Oh, look, you can see the round. Wow.

It's like walking into a kind of Tudor fantasy.

This is not quite what I was expecting.

And they all have new owners committed to turning them into their dream home.

It's a bit like a little old lady waiting for face lift

and we're coming in to make her better.

I never, ever thought I would do a project like this in my life before.

I have spent years restoring derelict old properties,

and having poured everything

into trying to create my perfect family home,

I know what a challenge it is to rescue a precious old building.

We've a lot riding on it and it's scary times.

We love it, we want to finish it, but sometimes it feels like too much.

It's Restoration Home.

A classic English country scene

replicated on thousands of calendars and biscuit tins

because it conjures up images of an idyllic rural life.

These buildings are much more than just a nostalgic snapshot.

Timber-framed buildings represent an important marker

in British architectural history.

In Tudor times the vast majority of buildings

would have been built in this style.

Tragically, today, very few remain.

In the village of Southam in Warwickshire, is a forgotten gem -

number one Abbey Lane.

For decades it seems to have passed under the radar.

Even though it's thought to date from Tudor times,

this house has never been given formal protection as a listed building.

Until recently it was owned by a family who'd lived here for over 50 years.

And when they put it on the market it was clear to anyone who looked

that number one Abbey Lane needed a lot of work.

And that's when the Forgans came along -

Sally, Stuart, and their daughter Scarlett.

For some time they've been looking for the right kind of house,

one that they could really make their own.

It's a house we knew. We lived locally and walked past it.

So we came and had a look and just really loved it.

From the first day we walked in, we really fell in love with it

and it's really become a passion of ours to bring it back to life.

From the minute we came round we could see its potential

and that it could be a really lovely family home.

The rooms were a nice size, the ceilings were high,

there were interesting beams.

So it was an instant feeling that we had when we came

that it could work for us.

One of the things that has appealed to us about this project

is being able to peel the house back to its fundamental core,

get a real feel for the building.

We've never done anything like this before, never.

And I think we know that we're quite mad,

because we didn't really think it through before we bought it.

It may not have been sensible, but Sally and Stuart bought it anyway.

The sale price was £330,000.

Obviously they couldn't move in straight away,

so they planned to remain in their present house

until the restoration work was completed.

But as soon as the sale went through, Sally and Stuart started making plans.

Stuart's brother is an architect, which was handy.

so he helped us initially put some plans together.

But he's not based in the UK

so we've then had a UK architect helping us.

Turning number one Abbey Lane into their dream home

is a project in three stages.

First, the old building.

The main house we just want to restore, put it back as it was.

There are a lot of partitions that were put in

over the last 100 years or so.

What we will take it back to, hopefully,

is more like what it was like when it was first built.

So stage one is restoring the building to its former glory.

The sides of the house were long ago rebuilt in brick,

but the timber frame remains at the front and back.

Stage two of the project

is turning the inside into a comfortable living space.

So on the ground floor they'll have separate lounge and dining rooms,

each with a wood-burning stove.

Upstairs, a study,

and two generous bedrooms, both en suite.

While in the attic they'll have two more bedrooms,

right under the eaves.

Then there's stage three, and that's an extension.

This will house a large kitchen and a garage on the ground floor,

with a family room and a guest bedroom

built in to the roof space above.

Five bedrooms might seem generous now,

but the Forgans are a growing family.

In fact, they're expecting a new baby in March.

So Sally and Stuart know what they want,

and they know how much they've got to spend.

They can afford no more than a £150,000 for the whole project,

though, of course, it's difficult to predict

how much work a house like this will need.

So they've called in Pete Ward to manage the project for them.

He's a builder who specialises in heritage jobs.

And he's already found some serious problems.

Look at that.

They've actually shotted and poured concrete.

I've never seen anything like it.

It's quite incredible and it's quite unnecessary.

Large areas of the house, both inside and out,

were coated in cement and concrete some time in the 20th century.

It was supposed to strengthen and protect the aging structure,

but it may well be the worst thing anyone could have done.

We've just started to pull this off

and you can see the timber underneath has just completely rotten.

This is the sort of thing that makes me cry.

Modern builders putting cement...

..over timber and brick.

And the reason the brick here is disintegrating

is because the cement is stopping the brick from breathing.

Under here you can see it's absolutely sopping wet.

Wet rot is an added complication for Sally and Stuart to think about,

in their already very busy lives.

It's going to be a difficult few months with the new baby and everything else,

but fun as well hopefully.

Stuart is a solicitor in the City of London,

and he has to spend up to three hours a day commuting.

I try and get in as much as I can during the week,

but with being in London most of the time I can only get in late at night.

-When it's dark.

-When it's dark with a torch.

Sally is working too.

She's the managing director of a market research company in Warwick.

At the moment she's there part time,

but soon she'll be having some extra time off.

My maternity leave is going to be spent running backwards and forwards

with two babies to check on the house.

But the guys have everything so under control I'm not too worried about it.

So, despite the problems with rot,

Sally and Stuart seem confident and ready for the build to get going.

So this is day one. Six months after buying it, day one is finally here.

So, scaffolding goes up today.

Scaffolding is up for 16 weeks, so that's how long they've got.

As long as we can stick to the 16 weeks it will mean that

everything else can hopefully stick to the schedule

and the plumbing and the lighting and the electrics can go in on time.

So, yeah, that's the plan.

A few weeks on, and it's time to call in our professionals

to see what we can discover about Sally and Stuart's house.

Historian Dr Kate Williams

will try to find out about the people who have lived here.

And architectural expert Kieran Long is going to investigate

what the building can tell us.

It's just so amazing to see it all like a skeleton.

Completely stripped back.

All of the cement render and 20th-century brick infill has now been removed,

leaving the timber frame reduced to its essentials.

It's a rare chance to see just how simple timber-frame buildings are.

People often say they're like a series of wooden goalposts

stood up parallel with each other, and joined by beams.

The problem with having sets of goalposts,

if you imagine that they want to fall that way,

they don't have much stiffness in that direction,

so you need to brace them diagonally.

The interesting thing is you see lots of office buildings today,

for instance, skyscrapers,

built with crossbracing, and it's exactly the same principle.

The structure may be simple,

but there are some tricky questions hanging over the house.

It's believed to date from the end of the 16th century,

but no-one knows for sure.

And there's something unusual about the building material.

The interesting thing about this structure is that it's not oak,

which would have been typical. It's elm.

So we have to do some digging to understand a bit more of that.

And down in the cellar there are clues

that it may not always have been just a house.

You can see that there's some decent quality stone.

Another thing that has caught my eye is this floor.

It's brick, very functional.

It suggests maybe there was some kind of use. They wear well.

But it's really nicely done.

There's a herringbone pattern here going round the corner.

To me this cellar gives me a clue

that this building was used for work.

As the historian, it's going to be up to Kate

to track down what people have been doing here,

and not just the actual inhabitants.

What I also want to find out about

is the importance of this town in the 16th century.

What kind of place was it? The population, the trade?

I really want to build up an actual picture of what Southam was like.

One other thing it would be nice to understand

is why these buildings resonate so strongly with us today.

When we come to the English countryside

we want to see a timbered building standing in an unspoilt landscape.

Why is this so powerful in our imagination?

It's the middle of March and the scaffolding has been up

for eight weeks - half its budgeted time.

Round the front, repairs are well under way on the rotten timbers.

But up on the roof they've only just started taking the tiles off.

And there's a lot of work to be done up here,

including structural repairs, dormer windows and modern insulation.

So the schedule has started to slip.

But then, Sally has had other things on her mind.

Namely, Florence Islay Forgan, just five days old.

So relieved she's here. The last few weeks dragged.

We didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl.

So it was a nice surprise to have another little girl.

But, yeah, really glad it's over.

While Sally's been busy elsewhere,

the surprises here haven't been quite so nice.

This structure depends entirely on the strength of the timber frame,

but those timbers are in a bad way.

About half of the rear frame will need to be rebuilt

and that's a job for a specialised craftsman,

a framing carpenter like Brendan White.

He's had 25 years experience working on traditional buildings,

mainly for English Heritage, so he knows the problems.

You've got to prepare yourself

and look around the job and see where it's the most unsafe and go for that one first.

You've got to take a little bit out and put a little bit back in.

While some of the timbers are beyond repair and will need to be completely replaced,

many are rotten just at the ends or just on the surface.

I only put the new stuff in where I've got no choice.

Strength-wise we're going to face a lot of the timbers.

These posts will have to stay. We'll face them where we need to.

The horizontals and verticals, where they're too decayed,

we replace them completely.

Put splicing in where we have to.

I've worked on a lot worse.

This now is not as bad as the front but it looks bad.

It took Brendan and another carpenter more than four weeks

to do the repairs to the front.

Wherever possible they use traditional methods -

like wooden pegs to hold the joints together -

so that the new matches the old.

Sally and Stuart are determined to restore this house in a sympathetic way,

even though that does mean extra work and expense.

For example, the infill panels between the timbers.

Originally these would have been wattle and daub made of sticks, mud and plaster,

but here they're being filled with a mix of traditional and modern materials.

Adam Williams is starting with a kind of high-tech fibreboard.

It's called Heracliff boarding. It's basically a breathable material.

To make the edges waterproof they use a traditional material.

This stuff is called caulking.

It's made of hair. It's got a type of grease, oil.

We use this stuff because basically it was used in the ancient years

when the houses were first erected.

On the inside, they're going to add a layer of insulation

made from sheep's wool, then modern plasterboard.

But on the outside they must use lime plaster which,

unlike modern plaster, will allow the building to breathe.

It's more difficult to work with, but it is traditional.

It's a part of heritage, isn't it?

It's...how the old boys used to do it.

Our historian Dr Kate Williams is out to discover

more about the house, and the wider context of Southam.

She's starting here in the town, at a local history archive

that's run by volunteers, the Cardall Collection.

Chairman of the group is Bernard Cadogan.

He's found some old pictures of Abbey Lane.

One of the most fascinating is this one of the chappie on horseback.

But he's standing on the green in front of the house

and at this time the house is all rendered.

This is probably about 1920s, isn't it? Guessing from his dress and shoes.

Probably. Um...

Then, we've got another one over here

-where we've got again...

-Rendered again.

-Rendered. And it's white.

But you see what looks like the pump in front on the green there

and a little gas lamp probably.

With the children in their smock dresses,

Southam of 100 years ago looks an idyllic place.

But, going back further, it wasn't always so tranquil.

Southam was actually quite an important town in days gone by.

Back in the time of Waterloo, 1800s, 1815,

Southam had a population ten times the size of Leamington Spa,

so it really was a bustling place.

So there is some information on the 19th and 20th centuries,

but going back earlier won't be easy.

I think a lot of information about these places has just been thrown out.

So we've got our work cut out for us, trying to discover everything.

I think you have. Yes!

It's a common problem. Go back more than a couple of centuries

and you'll be lucky to find any documents about one ordinary house.

Sally and Stuart started this build in earnest about six months ago.

Since then, all that heavy brick and concrete

that was weighing the house down has gone.

I've come to find out whether the fragile skeleton of the house is coping.

The scaffolding was due to come down right about now,

but there's still a lot to do on the structure.

On the other hand, seeing it like this,

Sally and Stuart can get to know every detail of their dream home.

What do you love about the house?

I think the history of the house, the sense of history in the wood.

Look at this amazing timber here.

-It's very beautiful, isn't it? Just holding up the house.

-Yeah.

This one here is a structural beam

but it appears to be just sitting on a cobweb actually!

-A cobweb and tiny bit of rubble.

-There's not a lot. I wouldn't push too much away of that.

-No. Do you think that might just collapse?

-It may do!

But the structural issues may not be the most serious problem

now facing Sally and Stuart.

They've allowed £150,000 for the whole project,

but they now realise it's going to cost a lot more.

At the beginning of the week we had a list of jobs and prices for the remainder of the work

that was more than the original budget, which is a problem.

-It's going to be twice your initial budget?

-Yes.

The house isn't worth the money we're spending on it.

And we haven't got any more money anyway.

And there's a second phase, the extension. We need that because it's where the kitchen is.

So even when the house is finished we don't have a proper kitchen in there.

We need to have the money left to do the rest of the build.

I know from personal experience what it feels like

when your build runs into trouble,

and the stress must be giving Sally and Stuart sleepless nights.

Though, with a new baby at home,

they're probably having those anyway.

You know, we love it we want to finish it

but sometimes it just feels like too much of a problem.

It's just when it feels like it could drag on much longer

or cost more money and we don't have it,

then it's like, "Why did we ever start it?"

"Why didn't we buy a little tiny house somewhere?"

-Why didn't you?

-Because we loved it really. That's the only reason.

Cos we came in and it felt like somewhere we could make a nice home.

But despite the delays and budget problems, Sally and Stuart are determined to press on.

When do you plan to move in to the main house?

So it's May now. I think realistically August.

Sally, I'm going to ask you that question again

and I'd like a considered answer.

When do you think you'll be moving in?

-Um, when will we be moving in?

-I'd like to move in August, September.

-August, September.

-You're sticking to it!

-Yeah.

-Do you think you'll be in by August? This year?

-We have to be really.

We have to be out of the other house.

We have to stop paying both mortgages.

-So it's onward and upward from here?

-Yeah. Yeah, hope so.

Kieran's on the trail of one of Abbey Lane's big questions.

If most timber-framed houses were built of oak, why was this one made of elm?

He's come to the Market Hall Museum in Warwick

to meet the senior keeper of natural history, Steven Faulk.

This is the home of a unique map that dates from Tudor times -

the Sheldon Tapestry Map.

Wow. Well, it's absolutely stunning.

It's over five metres wide, and this one is just of Warwickshire.

At the moment the original is away for essential conservation,

but this is a perfect copy.

It's absolutely full of information.

It's saying there's a real split between the east,

which is upwards, and the west which is downwards.

And it's telling you that there's a lot of trees in this area here,

which is called the Arden, the old Forest of Arden.

But there's a lack of trees and some low hills in the Feldon area.

Southam is in the heart of the Feldon area,

meaning "the area with fields."

It would have had a lot of elms around the settlements.

We're looking at a building with an elm frame,

so they may have used materials

that that would have been available in the surroundings nearby.

Yes, English elm was a tree of the open landscapes.

It wasn't a woodland tree.

And it really was a very, very abundant tree in Warwickshire.

The term the "Warwickshire weed" was the term given to the English elm,

and unfortunately it got decimated by Dutch elm disease in the 1970s.

Dutch elm disease is caused by a kind of fungus.

It was first recorded in Britain in the 1920s,

but when a new and virulent strain arrived in 1967, the disease spread rapidly.

Trees were felled and burned in an attempt to control the epidemic,

but by the end of the 1970s, the English elm was almost wiped out.

But there are still a few surviving elms in Warwickshire, is that right?

-There are. Only about a dozen.

-So we need to find one.

-I hope you do.

So 400 years ago elm was one of the most abundant and cheapest building materials

to be found in this part of Warwickshire.

But maybe there would be fewer problems today at Abbey Lane

if the house had been built of oak, rather than the Warwickshire weed

because oak is less prone to rot than elm.

Ryan Bravan is the site foreman.

I think that's where the budget's gone a bit AWOL

cos at the start of the job we didn't know what we were going to find

regarding the structure of the building.

A lot of it was rotten.

Timbers in brickwork rotten, rear frame rotten, corner posts rotten.

Pretty much what was there it wouldn't have lasted much longer

if we hadn't got our hands on it.

Dealing with all that rot has sent the costs rising,

but now, with Stuart and Sally desperate to be in before the end of summer,

the builders have mounted a big push.

We set the target for this Friday to complete the roof

and make the building watertight,

which is why we've drafted in the extra guys,

just to make sure the job's done complete come Friday.

Extra guys means extra costs. But if the exterior is finished by Friday,

the builders are hoping the end will then be in sight.

It'll be the final fix. We'll get the electrics in, plumbers in.

It'll soon fly together and within a few weeks, fingers crossed,

it'll be ready to move in and so on, all being well.

Kieran is out, searching for survivors.

Dutch elm disease almost wiped them out...

..but, just like the timber-frame house,

the English elm keeps turning up on calendars and chocolate boxes.

Certainly, for John Constable - probably the nation's favourite landscape artist,

the elm was the tree worth painting.

And now Kieran has found one alive.

450 years ago a tree just like this, a mature elm,

would have been cut down to build Abbey Lane.

We know that this is just one of the last 12 of these

that survive in Warwickshire.

What's really striking about it is it's a beautiful tree.

A delicate, billowing canopy.

Standing under this tree is kind of poignant.

It's a sight like Abbey Lane

that would have once characterised the whole of the British countryside.

And now both the tree and Abbey Lane are almost vanishingly rare.

It's been two weeks since the builders began their big push.

But they never reached their targets.

because the project has run into financial crisis.

Sally and Stuart knew the costs were rising,

but when the last lot of invoices came in

they felt that costs were still slipping.

If it carried on like that,

they simply wouldn't have the money to finish the job.

So the work had to stop.

We always knew that this kind of job is a bit unpredictable

and we know there have been things that have cost more money and taken longer.

And we've agreed to those things happening

and did things differently than the original plan.

But there has been a finite amount of money,

which we've been quite open about.

It's just really frustrating because the guys were doing a great job,

we were happy with the work. It's exciting.

It's getting to the stage where everything is coming together.

So to stop now is really frustrating.

We're really hoping that we can have a meeting next week

and get everybody back

but they've all been put on different jobs,

so it's not as simple as just saying, "Let's go again." I don't think so.

Hopefully it will only be another week or so.

Down in London, both of our investigators are about to hit the archives.

Kieran has come to the Royal Institute of British Architects to use the library

to put timber-framed buildings into their Tudor context.

While Kate is on her way to the Institute of Historical Research

at the University of London.

She's trying to find out about Southam when the house was built,

and she's come here because the Institute is the home of the Victoria County History -

often just called The Red Books.

The Victoria County History was begun in 1899,

a tribute to Queen Victoria.

It was meant to be an account of every county in Britain.

And it is still an incredible historical resource.

Kieran has also found a vital text, and it's a much older book.

So what we have here is

Raphael Holinshed's and William Harrison's famous description of England

from the late 16th century, from 1577.

There's a long, long description here

of different aspects of house construction in that period.

It begins by making some general statements.

It says here, "The greatest part of our buildings in the cities

"and good towns of England consisteth only of timber."

I found the bit on Southam and what is interesting is it says that

the land was under the control of St Mary's Priory in Coventry

up until the middle of the 16th century.

And it had become very valuable by 1535

and it was giving a huge amount of rent,

and then what happened was Dissolution of the Monasteries,

and in 1542 the manor was granted in fee

to one Sir Edmund Knightley and Lady Ursula, his wife.

So this chap, Edmund Knightley, suddenly became incredibly rich.

And what is really interesting is that timber of construction

that we see at Abbey Lane had a real meaning for them,

a cultural meaning, so much so that it says here

that Spaniards when they visited in Queen Mary's days

that one of no small reputation amongst them said after this manor,

"These English," quoth he,

"have their houses made of sticks and dirt

"but they fare commonly so well as the king."

This text is one that betrays a great deal of pride

about British house building of the period.

It's good for foreigners to come and be jealous

of the way English people live with these beautiful timber-frame houses.

This is an English architecture

that we can be proud of from the king to the common man.

Everybody lives in these kinds of buildings.

To find out more about Sir Edmund Knightley,

Kate has come to Victoria Tower in the Palace of Westminster.

He was a member of the House of Commons,

and this is where the parliamentary archives are housed.

Sir Edmund acquired the land around Southam but he never lived there

because, it seems, he had fingers in lots of other pies.

Well, Edmund Knightley seems to be a pretty colourful character.

He became MP for Reading, married a local widow.

When she died he made a rather marvellous match to a woman much younger than himself,

nearly 20 years younger, Ursula Vere,

the heir to the Earl of Oxford.

And after that he set about really trying to get more money.

He was terribly close to Henry VIII

and really close to Henry VIII's right-hand man, Thomas Cromwell.

This means he's front of the queue

when it comes to political power and riches being handed out.

So back in Tudor times the land around Southam was a valuable prize,

which means the house in Abbey Lane was in a prime location.

Kate needs to find out more.

It's been six weeks since work at Abbey Lane came to a complete stop.

HAMMERING

But the house is no longer silent,

because this restoration has been reborn.

We've really taken back the project. So we're managing it ourselves now,

which is a bit daunting but loads less stressful.

We know exactly what we're spending,

we know where it's going, we know what things are costing.

And it feels a lot better.

But it's really good to see something happening, people back here.

Brendan, who's the timber-framer, he's back

and he's brought some people in to work with him, which is brilliant.

So he obviously knows the building really well

and is just getting on with things.

And the end of the day I started the contract, I want to finish it.

The client's happy with me being here.

The work's great. I can get on with it.

Get a few more people involved, and go from there.

While Sally has taken over as project manager,

Stuart is also now putting every spare hour into the house.

He's no trained craftsman, but he is quite practical,

so Stuart's got a long list of jobs to do,

from laying concrete, to plasterboarding.

So I've been getting all of these plasterboard panels in

ready for the plastering to go on.

I've cut these out of the wall, very odd shapes and sizes,

so that's been a bit of fun.

It's been challenging at times doing the work here

with everything else going on, but fun too.

I wish... I'd love to spend more time here.

It's quite a lot of work trying to sort things out and look after the girls

and for Stuart going to work and trying to do stuff here.

When we can see progress it makes it all worth it.

So despite their hectic professional and family lives,

Sally and Stuart have taken control,

and the restoration is now back on course.

Kieran is investigating where the timber-framed house

sits in British culture.

He's come to one of the grandest timber-framed houses ever built in England -

the National Trust property of Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire.

It's the ancestral seat of the Moreton family.

They were rich and influential,

and they built this place to make a statement.

Kieran's here to find out what a timber frame can say.

We see this now as something that's settled down into the landscape

in stages over centuries.

Nothing straight about it any more.

We can see this is as charming and chocolate-boxy.

But I see something of real architectural sophistication.

This is real English architecture that's not about symmetry,

it's not about columns,

it's not about the decoration that comes 100, 200 years later.

This is about British craftsmen in this region,

making something of real visual sophistication.

But Little Moreton Hall saves its full impact for the courtyard.

Oh, wow.

It's absolutely amazing. It's like a whole fairytale castle.

Here's where you see how decorative all this timbering was

and how it's all for show.

They enjoyed just as much as we do

the patterns and the contrasts between these great black timbers.

You can't take it in at one glance. There's detail, a varied skyline,

there's all sorts going on and that is what still charms us about it.

Standing here, when all we can see is stuff from this Tudor period,

you start to imagine what the atmosphere must have been like around Abbey Lane

when that was one of the most important buildings in the town.

And now the restoration has been reborn with Sally in control,

it might soon be an important building once again - the pride of Southam.

Today Brendan is planning to fit a new beam into the ancient frame.

It weighs about half a ton, so he's hired a mechanical lift.

This could be dangerous.

If it slipped as we were trying to get it in,

it'd obviously do a lot of damage to us

and it might take the side of the wall out and pull the house out.

Push it over.

There are joints in this house that have lasted more than four centuries.

Brendan wants to make sure his are up to scratch,

but their first attempt is not perfect.

It's not all touching all over.

The joint, the half lap,

I want it touching top and bottom

so I have to saw-cut the bottom, saw-cut the top and tap it up,

so it touches everywhere.

I'm going to get it done.

And when the joint is made,

the last thing to check is how far out of parallel the beam is from end to end.

You know something, kid. Two mil, that's in. It's in.

This is the turning point. That's all the structural work done.

Now, at last, this build can finally progress to stage two -

turning the inside into a real home.

But Sally and Stuart have reached another turning point.

It's moving day.

BABY CRIES This is why we don't get anything done.

This is the reason not everything is packed.

Every time you start doing a box Florence wakes up.

Today's the day they thought they'd be moving into the house on Abbey Lane.

Where's your cot, then? Is it at Granny's house?

But in fact they're moving in with Stuart's parents.

I feel quite happy about moving in with them.

It just depends how long it's for.

It's for a couple of months, that's fine.

It's just not knowing exactly how long it will be.

To keep the build at Abbey Lane going,

they need to get some revenue from this house.

And for the short term, they've got a tenant moving in.

Meanwhile, our historian Dr Kate Williams has had to change tactics.

While documents can be found about the big players like Sir Edmund Knightley,

we want to know about one small house.

And when it comes to details that far back,

there's not much to be had.

It's unlikely we'll find anything from the 16th and 17th century.

Those records were made but they don't exist any more.

I'm going to start from a more recent period and work backwards.

To do that, Kate has come to the county archives in Warwick,

to search back through the land tax assessments.

That was the equivalent of council tax -

and these are the parish accounts.

Well, I'm going to start with this one.

The land tax assessment for 1922-1923.

Trouble is, being tax accounts, you don't get much juicy detail.

So Frank Matthews is the name of the occupier.

Land is what is being taxed and it's Abbey Lane.

With this kind of research, the clues are in the connections.

In 1881 the occupier was one Emma Boyce.

And what's interesting is that she didn't own the property. She just lived there.

And the owner was one Richard Spraggett.

But then in 1864 there were different people - there's no continuity.

So here the owner is Richard Wood, and the occupier is Mr Carmel.

So again we've got one owner, one occupier.

This is one of the earliest records. It dates from 1815.

And now Kate's got something.

I found the Woods in 1864. Here they are again in 1815,

so it's a lot of continuity in the owners.

And Thomas Wood here, he's actually living there.

He's the owner, and the occupier is himself. So this is a big change.

That means the Wood family had the house for at least two generations.

And now she has a name to follow, Kate can search for other documents held here.

She's found two.

So what I've got first of all

is the registers of marriage for the parish at the time.

We've got here in 1791 the marriage of Thomas Wood.

It's Thomas Wood, tanner, of Southam, marrying Mary Miffe.

But that's most fascinating because he's a tanner.

Here's his life, his occupation.

If Thomas Wood was a tanner, what does that mean for Abbey Lane?

What I've got is the will of Thomas Wood's father, John Wood, in 1781.

And here we are with Thomas Wood being left Abbey Lane.

It says here that, "I'm going to leave it to my son

"together with the yard garden, the back side buildings,

"the vats, kilns, fixtures

"and appurtenances belonging to the house."

So this isn't just an ordinary family house,

it actually is a place where work was carried on.

This most likely is a tannery.

With the end of the year approaching,

time I called at Abbey Lane to find out if they're making progress.

The scaffolding was, I know, meant to be up for 16 weeks initially.

How long has it been now?

It's been up since beginning of January and it's now November. So nearly a year.

So we'll be quite pleased to see it go.

-What's the plan next?

-We're hoping to be...

Well, our target date is Christmas.

-This is like a proper house.

-I know. Walls and everything.

-It's great.

I have to ask, looking at it like this,

how much of your budget has gone?

-All of it. All the original budget went quite a while ago.

-Yeah.

Except that we'd put aside the money for the electrics and the heating and plumbing

because we had those quotes right at the beginning.

So we're just going really slowly,

doing things month by month, doing what we can afford each month

and begging and borrowing what we can.

Doing a lot of the work ourselves...

All the internal work we've done ourselves.

Are you finding it hard to crack the whip? Are you tough on people?

-Um, I'm not tough. To start with, I think I wasn't tough enough.

-Yeah.

Is there something to be said for getting on everyone's case all the time?

-Yes.

-There is, isn't there?

-Yeah. Definitely it's helped.

I think Brendan's still not convinced that I'm not joking about Christmas.

Which isn't too surprising, given that he's still working on the roof.

They want to move in for Christmas. But...I'm saying nothing.

-What do you think really?

-Realistically, no.

I think they could be in for January, end of January.

-Are you proud of what you've done here?

-Um, yeah, I am, actually.

You should be because it's looking incredible.

-I enjoy the building trade.

-Yeah.

-I love building.

-Do you?

Yeah, from day one I was going to be a carpenter

since I was a kid. So it's my dad's fault.

He bought me a tool kit, carpentry kit, when I was about five.

I think he did it because he wanted me to do the jobs around the house.

-I was thinking I'll get my husband one for his birthday.

-That's it.

Never too old.

So Sally wants to be in before the end of the year,

and Brendan is, as always, doing his best.

The countdown to Christmas starts now.

Ten days to Christmas, and it's a big day.

The family are all here because the scaffolding is coming down.

We were a bit nervous coming over this morning

about what it was going to look like.

It's definitely a big milestone to get the scaffolding down.

It feels like it's finally all coming together

and there's so much going on inside today

and it's been really crazy for the last couple of weeks

with electricians and plastering and plumbing.

Well, not much plumbing.

We've got stonemasons in, a whole house full of people...

busy. So, yes, exciting.

So finally the house is revealed,

with the pattern of the timbers on full display.

And that might help us get a more accurate fix on when it was built...

..because the style of timber-frame houses changed over time

and varied between local areas.

So comparing patterns can help establish a date.

Abbey Lane has a distinct design, with upright supports, called studs,

arranged parallel downstairs, and a plain box pattern above.

Now, 20 miles away, Kieran may have found a match.

If he's right, then Abbey Lane could have a very famous relative,

because this is Hall's Croft,

the one-time home of William Shakespeare's daughter Susanna.

We've been on this journey through timber frames

just to try and understand a bit of the context of Abbey Lane.

And we got a tip-off that there was a similar timber frame

at Stratford-upon-Avon.

And sure enough, although it's much grander

and there are cosmetic differences, the general pattern is the same.

A stone foundation, this close-studded lower storey,

then a square pattern in the studs and upper storey.

It's really exciting to see something so similar.

The other exciting thing is we know the precise date of the building.

This has been carbon dated, the oak in this building, to 1613.

Because of the similarities and the way material is used -

there's also elm in this building, it's only 20 miles from Abbey Lane -

perhaps we can confidently now say that Abbey Lane can be dated

from the first or second decades of the 17th century.

1613 makes Abbey Lane a little later than previously thought,

but only by a few decades.

And back at the house right now,

it's the next few days that are causing concern.

It looks like Sally's dream of being in for Christmas could come true -

if they can get running water and a makeshift toilet rigged up in time.

So you want me to put some cement board on there for the plumber?

Yeah, so we need the toilet... The cistern's in a box thing,

so that needs to be on a flat wall.

OK, sorted. So we're getting there now.

Actually, there's still a long way to go.

If they do get in, it's going to be more like camping.

I've put this in temporary. The kids can't fall cos it's a good height.

-These lights work? Does that light work?

-Um, no.

I don't think most people would move into a house with it being not finished.

I think she'll struggle a bit but I think she'll be happier,

even though there's nothing finished.

Bed's going to be here.

And two travel cots will be wherever we can fit them.

Christmas tree maybe. I think we invest in a very small Christmas tree.

It just still looks like a building site, but it's nearly there.

Kate discovered that the Wood family were running a tannery from Abbey Lane.

But what sort of people were they,

and was it a cottage industry or something more substantial?

In 1791 Thomas Wood was married in the parish church of St James.

So Kate's gone to see out if he's still there.

He's not hard to find.

In fact, the whole family are all over the south aisle.

This entire wall of the church is really the Wood wall.

We've got a plaque there from Thomas to his wife and daughter,

another to his wife relating it to the window,

and over there a big plaque to John Wood.

And there are very telling details here.

Thomas Wood was the third son of John Wood, gentleman, and Margaret, his wife.

And that's very significant.

So the tanner had become a gentleman.

Here they are, the confirmation that these people, the Woods,

were really major parts of the community.

And this is also confirmation

that one Abbey Lane was a significant house from the 1700s on.

It's a place for a family of great standing.

It's Christmas day and the toilet is in, more or less.

So Scarlett and Sally, Stuart and little Florence

are enjoying what will hopefully be the first of many

in their very old new house.

What is it?

Happy Christmas.

What have you got?

-A hammer!

-Hurray.

-Can I bang on the roof now?

-Yeah.

So they made it in for Christmas,

but Sally and Stuart still have no idea of the historical significance of their house.

It's time for Kate and Kieran to tell all.

The biggest mystery of all that I wanted to find out was when this building was built.

So we went to Stratford to look at another house.

The advantage with this elm house is that it has been dated.

They know exactly when this was built,

-and the conclusion was that this was built in 1613.

-Wow.

-KATE:

-And then we went into the local church

and here we have Thomas Wood.

-And he lived in our house?

-Exactly. You know this plaque as well.

-We've walked past that many times.

-You've walked past it?

-Probably.

-And that was him.

-Yeah, it is exciting.

You think about all the things that will have happened in that house over 400 years. It's quite amazing.

We're really privileged to be able to have a house like it.

Two years ago, number one Abbey Lane was a forgotten house,

patched up with concrete, weighed down by brick.

The ancient timbers were struggling to survive and its future was bleak.

Sally and Stuart have faced enormous challenges

and invested everything in trying to save it.

It's now May 2012 and the big question is, how does it look today?

It looks incredible!

It's better than last time.

I imagine your neighbours must be pleased as well

because the whole corner plot is rejuvenated

by all the work you've put it.

People have been really positive.

We've had a letter from the local civic forum

saying what a great job we'd done for the town, which was nice.

-That's very nice.

-Really nice.

-So the town is appreciative of your efforts?

-Apparently.

Let's see if I am. Come on, let's have a look.

When they bought this 17th-century house,

it was filled with 20th-century additions that were damaging it.

Once stripped away, there was virtually nothing left,

just a fragile skeleton.

It was difficult to believe number one Abbey Lane could be saved at all.

This is...awe-inspiring. It's brilliant.

And it feels so open and...

It was open the last time I was here but it was open to the elements

and now it's become tranquil and beautiful, isn't it?

It feels really nice. It's a nice place to be.

Sally and Stuart have achieved the seemingly impossible.

The living room on the ground floor

had some of the most devastating problems.

The wood had been suffocated by concrete

leaving the original timber frame in desperate need of help.

Now the beams are the backdrop to a modern family home.

You've got very contemporary furniture in here, which is great.

Because it's hard with a Tudor building

not to make it look like Carry On Henry or something

or some sort of film set or mock-Tudor pub, isn't it?

It's our house and we don't want to change all the things we've got.

Yes. And who you are. Yeah.

And actually I think it works really well.

The other room on the ground floor houses a temporary kitchen

until they've completed their modern kitchen-diner

in the extension to the rear.

They hope to start work on this in a few months.

There's been a huge transformation, however, in the last two years.

The upstairs rooms were barely accessible then,

rotten timbers outnumbering the good.

Now there is a study, a bathroom and two bedrooms.

Sally and Stuart have been living here for five months,

so have come a long way since Christmas Eve.

This was the first room that you actually used in the house.

-You spent Christmas in here.

-We did.

-What was that like?

-Christmas Eve.

We didn't have any boards in the ceiling

so it was just sheep's wool, which kept falling on you.

Two travel cots, three little convection heaters

and a cold tap in the bathroom. It was really exciting.

The girls loved being able to wake up here on Christmas Day.

It's been exciting. It has been an exciting adventure.

The girls have been a really good part of it.

And they've not been fazed at all by no floors. They don't care.

They're happy rolling around in sawdust.

They've spent most of the year so filthy.

The roof space of the old house was the most at risk.

The leaking tiles had created the perfect conditions for rot to set in.

Now Scarlett and Florence have the ideal space to play and sleep.

Finally, this family has made this old house a home.

-It's fabulous, isn't it?

-Thank you!

Good one. Oh...Oh...

Your big girl's bed!

By taking charge of the project when it was in jeopardy,

Sally and Stuart have transformed this house for £175,000,

incredibly just £25,000 over their original budget.

They have also never lost sight of why this building is so important.

-I love this, Stuart.

-We're pleased with that.

Why did you leave that exposed?

We wanted to show some of the ordinal fabric of the house.

It's really wonderful, isn't it? It is like a little window into history.

If you and Sally hadn't come along,

what would have happened to Abbey Lane?

It's difficult to say.

Had we not spent the time in taking it right the way back to the start,

I think the house would have got into more and more problems.

Yeah. It feels like a happy place to be. It looks beautiful.

Yeah. We're pleased.

Number one Abbey Lane was at a critical point in its history.

It had been knocked about and patched up,

but the very fabric of the building was being destroyed.

Everybody ignored it until Stuart and Sally came along,

but they saw something magical here, something important.

So they battled through the problems.

They held their nerve.

And finally,

two years later,

number one Abbey Lane has been reborn...

into a beautiful family home.

Next time on Restoration Home...

I loved this place from the minute Nick showed me the brochure.

A brave family try to make their home in a decrepit watermill

but is it already too late to save it?

This is damp. It's all the way through the house.

And we discover the role it played in making Britain great.

This is the kind of thing we associate with Westminster Abbey,

not somewhere we might live.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd