Cassillis House Restoration Home

Once we walked through that gate, we were hooked.

When I look at the house I just think, "Wow."

Every time I see it I'm just like, "Wow."

It's a castle, it's a castle.

How can you not buy a castle?

-Wow! That's some fireplace.

-It's going to be an amazing home.

-First day of the rest of its life.

-Are you happy?

We are way, way, way over budget.

I mean, I am actually living in a building site.

You have to make sacrifices.

There are days when you just think, "Have we made the right decision? Are we doing the right thing?"

I want it to look what it looked like when it was first built.

This is just such a beautiful place,

it's like every romantic part of my brain is just firing.

You don't have any idea how much money this is going to cost you.

I don't think either of us

envisaged quite as big a project as we've actually taken on.

It's still a dream, a dream that we're actually doing it.

I can't wait to move in. It seems just to take for ever.

It's just a nightmare.

I'm telling myself not to worry. What can I do?

I've got to finish the house.

This is Cassillis House,

set in 295 acres of dramatic Scottish landscape in Ayrshire.

The core of this vast castle is believed to date back to

medieval times.

It has been altered and extended over the following 600 years,

but today the whole building is under threat.

It's considered to be one of Scotland's most important houses,

but the roof leaks, the interior is disintegrating

and parts are even under water.

The restoration of Cassillis House will require someone with money,

determination and guts in enormous amounts.

Australian-born Kate Armstrong believes she fits the bill...

We don't have any castles in Australia,

so to come to something that was built in the 1400s,

which was before Australia was even discovered by Captain Cook,

just seems utterly incredible.

Kate moved to the UK 20 years ago.

An Australian comes over here, works, finds a castle, buys it, does it up.

As a successful businesswoman and entrepreneur,

when Kate first saw the castle she was not only able to

dream of saving it, she also had the means to actually try.

It's a dream. It's every Australian's dream.

It's a castle. How can you not buy a castle?

With her children away at school

and her husband holding the fort at their current home on

the Isle of Arran, Kate will be masterminding this restoration on her own.

I've never done this sort of renovation before.

Nothing on this scale or nothing of this age.

I think it is a big responsibility

because there is so much history here and it is really important.

I'm not buying this to turn it into a hotel, I'm buying it to make

a house, you know, that respects the integrity of what's there already.

I see it more as, you know, we're custodians of it

for the time being, and we will restore it as best we can.

The house was purchased for £3 million in July 2009

and Kate and her family moved in straight away.

I mean, literally, we were camping in a couple of rooms.

It was kind of ridiculous, really,

cos there was heating in two rooms, it had one shower in the

whole building which was quite a long trek from the bedroom.

Unfortunately that was the really, really cold winter and the

whole place froze, and we just had to move out, we couldn't live in it.

And then we started planning the work.

Cassillis consists of a medieval tower,

with an early 19th century house on the front.

On the lower ground floor

Kate's creating her showpiece family kitchen.

There's also a cinema and gym.

On the ground floor, rooms include a dining room and drawing room,

and in the tower, a bedroom and bathroom.

On the first floor, there are seven of the castle's 13 bedrooms

and six bathrooms.

The tower continues up, containing a library and a ballroom.

And at the top, more bedrooms and bathrooms.

It's important that it functions as a family home, even if it's got things

in it like a ballroom, you know, this is not a room we'll use all the time.

I mean, we're already having arguments about whose

bedroom is going to be whose and how close they are to things.

This is my favourite room - or will be.

It was just a boring WC, but now we've knocked that wall out

and you can see this is the old staircase, and so my idea is

that you can now sit on a toilet in the corner here and look up

the stairs and... There is some graffiti. There's a love heart

from 1936 and someone writing something in 1945. Who knows how they

got up there and why they were writing graffiti on the walls,

but we're going to leave that as well. It's going to be awesome.

It is an adventure and I'm really interested in history

and I'm just...I'm a nerd.

I get very excited by this sort of stuff.

The restoration of Cassillis is a huge undertaking, the largest

and most expensive we have ever seen.

Work's already started on the house.

Kate's brought in a big team headed up by project manager Jim Elliot.

The first time I saw Cassillis was in 2011

when we came on site to start doing works to the externals.

I looked over the whole job and I thought,

"Oh, my God, this is going to be a bit of hard work."

Render/repair jobs in Scotland

in winter - ain't exactly the best time of year to do it, so we

knew it was going to be a challenge.

Up until now, Jim and the team have been making the building watertight,

but Cassillis is moving into its most critical phase...

saving and meticulously restoring the extensive interior.

And it's this interior that has helped give it the highest grading

awarded to historic buildings in Scotland.

It's a full-on A listed building and just about every single

part of it we've got to consider what we do with it.

But the biggest challenge of all

is that Kate wants the restoration completed in just four months.

We do have a very, very tight programme

and we're going to have to go some to get it there.

To finish on schedule, every part of this build must run

like clockwork. I've come to see Kate, and the scale of her dream.

Really good to meet you.

-Good to meet you too.

-And at your fantastic house.

-It's pretty imposing.

-Isn't it?!

We're surrounded by Portakabins, by diggers, by dumper trucks.

How many builders are on site?

Um...I've actually lost track,

but I do know last week there were close to 25 to 30.

Wow! Do you have any idea when you'll be moving in?

Well, I'm hoping we'll move in in June.

-Three and a half, four months away.

-Yeah.

-God, it's a big push.

-Yeah, absolutely.

Here we go. I hope I don't break my neck going down.

SHE LAUGHS

-This is the...?

-Kitchen.

-Kitchen.

Yeah, it hasn't been used as a kitchen for a very long time.

And so what's changed here? Something's missing from here.

Yeah, there were a couple of ranges - big, old cast iron ranges from the 1800s,

and one of them we're going to keep and refurbish,

so we've got our kitchen designer incorporate the old range.

-Then an island here?

-Yeah, a big island and a couple of window seats.

Obviously the floor level at the moment is probably half a metre

below where it will end up, but we've had to dig it out so that we can...

-It's very wet, isn't it?

-..lay a damp course.

We needed a rowing boat to get across here the other day.

-And why is that?

-Because this house - we didn't know this at the time -

-was built over field drains. Old clay pipes.

-Right.

And as soon as we took the floor up, the water just leaked everywhere.

-Wow.

-Yeah, it took us a bit by surprise.

-Just watch all the wires.

-Yeah.

-Dining room.

-Gosh, so that is quite a long way from the kitchen, isn't it?

What a beautiful room!

Yeah, it's lovely, isn't it?

So this is coming out of the Victorian house.

What I really love is the fact that you're in Victorian Scotland here,

two steps down here, completely another time in history.

What happens through there?

-15th century.

-15th century! Not Narnia.

SHE LAUGHS

-What's this?

-This is the original entrance to the tower.

This was a portcullis, and I can't show you cos I'm not strong enough,

but this door opens up.

No!

-It does.

-That's hilarious.

I know, but at some stage they knocked through the walls here

and made, sort of, staircases up to the floors above.

One side was finished and plastered and painted,

and the other side was just left as a...rubble.

We're not going to use these at all cos they're too dangerous.

The staircases sort of finish about halfway up,

-but we're going to keep them.

-Yeah.

And keep the openings and have some lights

so you can throw a light switch and actually have a good look up there.

Oh, that's great. That's great, so you'll be able to...

It's like a little art installation, you'll be able to look

through a window into a piece of the house's history.

Exactly.

I think it's so exciting to still see the history,

but in nice, modern living.

And that's what's so exciting about this building.

And why I love it.

I don't blame you. It's fascinating.

As Kate's race against time to complete Cassillis begins,

so too does our historical investigation.

Historian Dr Kate Williams will begin her search to discover

the characters that left their mark on this castle.

But first, architectural expert Kieran Long

will attempt to decode the story of its architecture.

Your first impression as you walk up to it is that there

are in fact two buildings here.

One, this honey-coloured stone house to the left,

and the main one, this kind of magnificent imposing tower,

which clearly is situated strategically on this amazing,

beautiful river, looking down this valley.

And it tells you there are two very different things going on here.

One, it's about being a castle, being defensive,

and another one which is about, you know, a different kind of lifestyle.

The house, it's 19th century.

I suspect that not only did they add this house to the front

of the tower, but have substantially remodelled the tower house itself.

We can already see these large sash windows - they have nothing

to do with castle architecture - these are Victorian additions.

The skyline of the building really diverts the eye,

really makes your eye dart from one place to another.

Weather vanes and turrets and spires and these stepped gables and so on.

These are all part of romanticising the landscape

and romanticising this building.

Well, we've just walked through the big,

thick perimeter wall of the oldest piece of this property - the tower.

We're now standing in the deepest window reveal I think I've ever seen.

This must be, what, three metres nearly?

And that is the depth of the wall.

That's the perimeter wall of the tower house.

Cannon balls could hit this wall and this thing wouldn't fall down,

and that's what this was all about.

What's really nice is that right behind me here we can see a bit of it exposed.

This is real rough and ready construction,

really effective, and all about fortification.

This was not supposed to go away,

and indeed it has lasted for 600 years or so.

Well, I really love this detail because it's one of those really

authentically medieval-looking pieces of stonework.

Long covered up by render

and would've probably lead straight into a rather grand hall-like space.

So it's here where you start to get that real atmosphere

of what the building would've been like 600 or 700 years ago.

Well, it's when you get up here that you realise what this tower

typology was all about. Why do they build castles like towers?

Well, it was to command the landscape. Look at the view you get.

You know, any trouble that was on the horizon,

you'd be prepared for by the time it got here.

Well, when this was a fortification, this roof line would've

looked very different.

Probably battlements, you know, defensive kind of architecture.

Now, that's all been replaced by a kind of Victorian fantasy.

There's so much to go on here, I mean, this is a significant building

and there are two main strands for me that I am most interested in.

One is the history of these tower houses - I want to understand

what this would've been like when it was really working as a castle.

The other is the 19th century building and the additions

to the skyline, and all of that makes this building a kind of

living document of the history of this area and of Scotland.

With emergency restoration work done to make both

sections of the house structurally sound and watertight,

Jim's army of workmen can now head inside the castle.

But this old house still has plenty of surprises...

Jim has found a major problem in the kitchen.

I've now discovered that the scullery

and pantry wall has been built on top of the existing floor,

rather than built off a foundation, so what we're having to do is

take the wall down because it's become structurally unsafe.

This was not part of the programme.

We've originally taken the plaster off the wall, and as we took

the plaster off, we found the wall was moving side to side.

You always find wee anomalies where things are built differently -

somebody's altered it - and to a degree you'll get that in every job,

but in this particular case there's so much.

There are more problems at the top of the house.

Cassillis was heated by a series of open fires

that lead up to the 15 chimney stacks.

One of the chimneys is blocked and Robert Hutchison has got

the painstaking task of trying to trace the problem.

This chimney is quite unique in comparison with the other two.

It's shared between the new building here and the old tower.

And it's the only chimney that we've found a blockage in.

Our plan is basically just to open up a hole, effectively,

in the side of the chimney stack and have a look in.

Specialist driller Roger Williams has bored a hole in the chimney

and has hit the jackpot.

Somebody's old pair of jeans... or shirt.

Yeah, somebody's tried to jam the chimney to stop the draught.

I think that is it clear now.

With that flue now working,

Roger can continue helping to modernise the castle.

The oldest part has never had central heating, and installing it

will mean drilling down through two and half metres of stone floor.

This to put the heating pipes up for the radiators.

They're getting fed through from the ballroom to the third floor.

Originally I was supposed to just be here for a week,

but I've been here for five weeks now.

As I say, "every hole is a challenge."

Prior to this restoration, parts of the castle haven't changed

since its construction in medieval times.

One person who knows what Cassillis was like as a home is

Lady Elizabeth.

It's been a huge part of my entire life really.

She was the last in the Kennedy family line to live there,

and it was her medieval ancestors who built it.

It was a wonderful place to grow up.

We had such fun exploring, making dens, you know,

it was a very lovely, safe place to be.

And it was incredibly cold.

There was no heating or electricity in the old wing,

and if we were going to the old wing, we had to put on our winter coats and woollen hats.

Lady Elizabeth moved into the house as a child in 1957

and lived there for many years.

The room that was the billiard room, my mother changed into a ballroom

and we used to have lovely dances up there, and that was great fun.

And New Year's Eve parties.

After my mother died we made the decision -

the very hard decision - that we'd have to sell.

We were the old adage of being land rich and cash poor.

We were not in a position to be able to spend the sort of money

that would be needed to keep the house

so we would hope it would stand for another 600 years.

Lady Elizabeth's ancestors, the Kennedy clan, will be

the focus of Kate's investigation.

She is starting at the National Library of Scotland

and has found a book detailing the history of Scottish castles.

This is where I found the first mention of the family

who are connected to Cassillis.

The Kennedy family, who came into possession of it in 1373,

when Sir John Kennedy married the heiress to the property, Marjory de Montgomerie.

And what it seems like, it was a piece of land, it was a house,

and it was the Kennedy family who actually built the castle.

This book refers to the Kennedy family as the Kings of Carrick.

Carrick was the area in which Cassillis was at the time, suggesting that these people were

the Kings of Carrick shows how significant they were.

And it seems as if they had a rather tricky time,

because according to this book, their history was,

"one long catalogue of violence, savagery and sudden death."

Cassillis comes after a great period of battle and struggle for Scotland.

From 1296 to 1357 it was the Scottish Wars of Independence in which they

were constantly battling the attempts of the English to invade.

There was a time in which everyone was really building fortified houses,

fortified castles, to try and protect themselves,

their wealth and also the surrounding area.

Kate's identified that the Kennedy family came into possession

of the land that Cassillis now stands on in 1373.

Kieran's first step will be trying to discover

when the castle was built on the land.

His search begins at the National Archives of Scotland.

He's located two royal charters relating to Cassillis,

which are over 600 years old.

This is a charter from 1404 from King Robert III of Scotland,

granting the estate of Cassillis to the Kennedy family

and all of their heirs.

The document's in Latin, but this tells us that this

is a document referring to the grant of lands.

This document is from 1453 and is King James II also granting

the land to the Kennedy family, but he mentions

the Castle of Cassillis and that tells us

that there was a castle built in the gap between 1404 and 1453.

We still don't know exactly when, but it suggests that that

first half of the 15th century was the birth of Cassillis.

To understand what the original tower house at Cassillis

looked like, Kieran's come to Kinross on the

east coast of Scotland.

He's visiting Loch Leven Castle,

constructed in the 14th century.

Well, it's amazing to see it from the loch,

because, of course, it feels completely impregnable.

It makes you imagine what Cassillis must've been like

for approaching armies.

The kind of intimidating way that it commands that landscape is

exactly echoed here.

It's really extraordinary to be standing in this space

because the tower, of course, is here, it's beautiful,

but it's surrounded by a whole other world of ancillary buildings,

of another line of defensive walls.

It really gives you a sense of that kind of activity of the place

that would've been, you know, really teeming with life.

What we see here, of course, are these windows

which are all about being defensive, not about looking out of.

Quality of light wasn't a great concern.

They really only needed to be big enough to fire arrows out of and later, guns.

This wall is a really beautiful one.

It's our very image of what a castle wall should be, you know,

massive pieces of stone, not really put together in any form or way.

So all of this is covered up as Cassillis,

and that's, in a way, a shame because these castle walls are so evocative.

I really wanted to come and see Loch Leven Castle

because it's a castle in its original form.

It gives you that sense of the toughness

and the strategic importance of these buildings.

The next step, I think, is to find out who exactly has been

responsible for the transformation of Cassillis from tower house

like this one, to the Victorian-looking thing we see today.

What was happening in architecture at the time to make them

confident enough to do something next to a castle?

Back at Cassillis, Jim has been laying siege to the countless

problems that are arising during this restoration.

Dozens of man hours have already been spent trying to make

Kate's future kitchen watertight.

Jim's determined to get this problem solved.

Normally you would go at it with just maybe one solution,

but in this particular instance we've used three,

because we've got a damp-proof membrane on the outside which

will stop any water penetrating into the building.

We've also fitted a field drain which will go into the manhole there,

which drains out underneath the kitchen.

And in the kitchen we've put a tanking membrane on the floor

and that's had a new floor screed fitted to it,

so it's belt, braces and a little bit more.

Hopefully that's all done, dusted, and we can forget about it.

With Jim confident of his victory in this particular battle,

the concrete trucks arrive and the kitchen floor can finally go down.

It's the last of the big concrete pours.

It should've happened right at the very start, but it didn't,

so now we can move on, start pushing to get it brought back onto time.

It's the closure of something that's been annoying us

for four and a half weeks.

At the National Library of Scotland, Kate's continuing her

investigation into the Kennedy clan.

Her search is focusing on the 16th century,

and the first Earls to live at Cassillis.

What I have got here is

the Dictionary of National Biography from 1908, and here I've got

a reference to Gilbert Kennedy, third Earl of Cassillis,

and he is a pretty intriguing character.

Gilbert Kennedy was born in about 1517 and he died in 1558,

so he's alive in the midst of a most important period in Scottish history,

and that's that of the Scottish Reformation.

Henry VIII breaks away from the Church of Rome

and makes the Church of England, and what he wants is for his nephew,

James V of Scotland, to do exactly the same thing.

But James ignored his uncle's request.

Furious, Henry VIII invaded Scotland.

James responded by sending troops to England.

And in 1542, the Scots were defeated at the Battle of Solway Moss

on the English-Scottish border.

Many men were captured and amongst them

was Gilbert Kennedy, third Earl of Cassillis.

He was imprisoned in the Tower of London.

The archives within the tower hold the story of what happened next.

Fate would take a hand in Gilbert Kennedy's future.

Soon after he was captured, James V died.

His baby daughter Mary then became Queen of Scotland.

This gave Henry VIII an idea to sort out a marriage between his son Edward

and the baby Mary, Queen of Scots, and therefore ally both

countries, and that would essentially make Scotland his vassal state.

And what he wanted to do was use Gilbert Kennedy to push

forward the cause of that marriage, so he decided to let

Gilbert Kennedy go free, but only if he left behind some hostages.

Gilbert Kennedy sacrificed his two brothers and uncle for his own freedom.

Letters give an insight into how horrific their lives as hostages were.

They're begging our man, Gilbert Kennedy, Earl of Cassillis for help.

They are saying,

"We have this miserable case." They mean a miserable state of life.

"We are desperate. We beg you to honour your promises.

"We beg you to look after us

"and push forward the King of England's proclamation."

And they are convinced they will be suffering death right shortly,

because if Henry VIII gets angry, he'll simply chop off their heads.

Fortunately, Henry VIII eventually allowed the hostages

to be released, even though Gilbert Kennedy did not succeed

in arranging a marriage between Edward and Mary, Queen of Scots.

What I have found here is the final piece of the jigsaw.

After working for Henry VIII, Gilbert Kennedy then starts negotiating

with France to encourage a marriage between the son of the

King of France and Mary, Queen of Scots.

They marry in 1558,

but it says here that Kennedy gives great offence to the French court,

and by the end of the year he died in suspicious circumstances

and was possibly poisoned.

The third Earl of Cassillis was a notorious character,

who fraternised with royalty but came to an untimely end.

What will be the story of the Earls that followed him?

Kate Armstrong has owned Cassillis for almost four years

and Jim has been working on it for much of that time.

During the restoration, he has made a succession of problematic

and expensive discoveries...

..but today he's made one that is just plain exciting -

a secret room!

-Wow, so there is a doorway, isn't there?

-There is a doorway, yes.

You can see the stone work all round about it, and it's been bricked in

at some stage in its life.

You know, I thought we'd discovered everything inside,

but then, you know, you say, "Just take that stone infill out so that we

"can see the reveal on the window." And they do that, and oh, my God!

-It's a complete new room. Cos we've got to keep it.

-Yeah.

You can't just discover this and brick it up.

Most likely blocked up for hundreds of years,

this 15th-century room is becoming part of the castle once more.

It's definitely part of the original structure,

and more recently it's been used as a coal cellar,

so it's been full of coal, which again is interesting

and why it'll be blocked up.

By the amount of fires they had up here, this was the servants' quarters

and there was one, two, three, four, six fires up here.

So it was probably taking a lot of coal,

so they've converted it and obviously

when the servants moved out they've just flushed over the whole wall.

We've been looking at this for three years

off and on to now see everything and see the groove where the glass

has been, the tool and the dressing, even the sandstone ceiling above us.

Good to see it.

I don't know what we'll do with it, but good to see it.

'Every new discovery at Cassillis reveals another

'story about the house, but also more work for Kate and the team.

'I'm back to see how she's getting on.'

-How's it going?

-It's going really well, really well.

But we've been through some really big things we have had to do.

-Are you at the decorating stage yet?

-Yes, we are.

How many rooms have you got to do?

On the list I've got, there are 112 rooms.

112! Read it and weep.

You see, that's my idea of heaven. I'm dying to have a look.

-Can I go in now?

-Of course.

-Thank you!

-Let's go.

Yes...

-So painting has clearly started in here. How exciting.

-I know!

-So this is the original paintwork on this plaster?

-Absolutely.

This is a Kennedy emblem.

It was such a beautiful piece, we thought we would just leave that.

It's a beautiful room, isn't it?

-Imagine a small ceilidh band and a bit of dancing going on?

-Yes, I can!

-Brian...

-Hi there.

-..this is an incredibly tiring job, isn't it?

A bit sore on the neck.

Do think she has made a good choice in colour, Brian?

Yeah. The only one I'm a wee bit of kind of...

iffy in doubt about is the library.

If it was me, I would have put the darker green on the ceiling

just to lower it ever so slightly.

-So you would have done darker on the ceiling and then...?

-And a bit lighter on the walls.

-And lighter on the walls.

-Where were you two weeks ago?

I needed that advice two weeks ago!

So, the library, Brian isn't sure about this room because...

-I'm not sure about it either.

-I love this green. I LOVE this green!

I think it's absolutely beautiful. So, this green is perfect.

You think the ceiling's too light, Brian. Kind of agree, actually.

-I do, too, but I do like the colour on the walls.

-I love the colour.

-But you could have it on the ceiling too.

-I think you can have it on the ceiling as well.

That wouldn't take too much trouble, would it? Would it?

Would it take much trouble for you to do the ceiling,

a couple of coats of that on there?

-Yes!

-Is that all right?

-THEY LAUGH

Next, we're downstairs in the kitchen,

where there's been some real progress.

Oh-ho! This is very, very different from the last time I was here.

-No mud.

-No mud!

And I am up, what, about three or four foot. A huge amount.

In the end, we did spend more money than we really needed to in here,

because we did do the belt and braces approach.

-Is it starting to feel to you like a room in a home now?

-It is.

Particularly once they put the plasterboard up, you could

really see the shape of the room and get the final measurements for

how the kitchen is going to be made, because it's a handmade kitchen.

-Is it?

-Yeah.

-Ooh, Kate! Lovely. Are you excited?

-I am.

-And it's actually one of the few extravagances I budgeted for.

-Yeah.

That sounds lovely. Slightly... Kitchen envy, can you see it?

Outside, Kate has one more paint colour to choose.

Restoring such an important historic building is a huge

responsibility, so this final exterior colour is certainly

the most important one of all.

I gather from your samples up on your walls here, Kate,

-that you've got a selection of colours to choose from.

-Well, yes.

-Originally, I painted these colours up, nice greys.

-Yes.

-I thought, let's just paint it grey.

-Yeah.

-But then Historic Scotland said, "No."

-Oh?

-"You can have it from a yellow palette or from a pink palette."

-Oh!

And there is no doubt about it, that when this keep was built first,

it had a harling, which is this render on it,

and it would have been limewashed.

And the limewash they would have used would have been yellow or pink.

So we chose a slightly darker yellow

-and it matches the yellow stone of the keep.

-Yes.

You are going to be able to see this house a mile away.

It's going to be my yellow box for the rest of my life.

It's not yellow, it's cream!

But the team are far more than just a lick of paint away

from finishing this restoration.

With only weeks left before Kate wants it completed, there are

over 50 workers plying numerous trades all over the castle.

Having got heating pipes into parts of the house for the first time,

the plumbers are now trying to hide them.

We've had to chisel 2-3 inches of wall out to get the supplies back

so we can get the original features back on the wall.

-This is the second attempt that we have had of this, isn't it?

-Yeah.

It's a learning experience as well.

Kate is drawing on every ounce of her business experience

to keep the schedule moving forward.

Well, these meetings are absolutely vital,

because it keeps me up-to-date with the project

and it also stops things from stalling.

It's incredibly important to have the right team, people you can trust.

211 is the floor tiles, which we say are now on-site.

I always enjoy hearing kind of what progress has been made,

because obviously I have been able to see it,

but there's a lot of stuff you don't see.

The schedule's right for the morning room,

-but maybe it was another room, Jim.

-Might be another room.

Let's face it, there's 112 of them! SHE LAUGHS

The plan is to complete all the rooms, so even though parts

are still a building site, Kate must focus on detail.

With the carpets, I've ordered some samples of tartan

which I want to use in all the common areas in the house.

Finding the Kennedy tartan is actually quite difficult.

It's not one that they... We'd have to have that one bespoke made.

And then that would be hideously expensive.

You can send e-mails, you can send letters, send photographs,

but unless you physically come and see it on-site, you'll never know.

'It's always been looking at how do you wire it, how do you plumb it, put lights in?

'Suddenly it's, how are we going to finish the decoration on that bit?'

We are no longer dealing with big issues, it's small issues.

For some things, you have got your own mind of how you want it to go.

But you know your client has probably got a different idea how she wants it to be finished.

Another point, guys,

is that those should come with chrome brackets, not white.

We only needed half-a-dozen meetings to get it sorted, didn't we?

Yeah, yeah. It's only taken ten weeks!

SHE SIGHS

You know, you get all these things and until you actually go

and visualise it, see things in situ, you can't make some decisions,

so, yeah, great meeting.

Kate's travelled to the west coast of Scotland, to Culzean Castle,

the Kennedy family's other seat.

So far, Kate has discovered that the Kennedy clan were notorious in the 16th century.

The 3rd Earl had links to Mary, Queen of Scots and was held

prisoner by Henry VIII, only to escape by betraying his family.

It appears the 4th Earl was no less well connected.

The 4th Earl is a pretty powerful and impressive man,

and he really is right there in the centre of Scottish politics.

Gilbert succeeds his father in 1558,

and Mary, Queen of Scots returned to Scotland from her marriage

in France and stayed with him for three days.

He creates his allegiance to her, he makes himself close to the Queen.

He is always there, he is always helping her,

and it certainly seems he is in the thick of what is the biggest

whodunit in Scottish history - who killed Lord Darnley,

Mary, Queen of Scots' husband, in 1567?

Mary and her husband's relationship had become strained

and he died under very dubious circumstances.

There was a huge explosion at the house where Lord Darnley was

staying, but his body was found in the garden,

giving rise to speculation he had escaped the first

attempt on his life in the house, only to be murdered outside.

It's thought that it was one of Mary, Queen of Scots' supporters,

Lord Bothwell, who wanted to marry her.

And what we now also know is that someone else who was

present in that house was our man, Gilbert Kennedy.

So it's pretty hard not to conclude that he was actually

part of the plot to kill Mary Queen of Scots' husband, which makes

him such a significant figure and a pretty murderous this one at that.

This links the 4th Earl of Cassillis to one of the most intriguing unsolved murders in British history.

These men reflect Scotland at the time.

They were venal, they would do anything for power and money,

and they were men who absolutely were there on the side of power

and on the side of the monarch.

Back at Cassillis, and the decor is being finished according to

owner Kate's exact specification.

Decorating this house is no simple task,

as Peter Lawson has been finding out.

These paints are hundreds of years old. Stripping it off.

We fill in any damage.

Just basically whatever your eye can see to get it as smooth as you possibly can.

The old ceiling is kind of crumbling, so this stabilises it.

90% preparation, 10% decoration.

So this ceiling is now going to be lined and painted pure white.

I would do away with the gold and make it pure white.

Good for the colour reflection and things. But it's not my choice.

Not my choice. I am not allowed to pick that.

Lots of the cornicing in the house has been destroyed by water damage,

so it must be recreated from scratch.

Creating this ornate detailing is a highly-skilled trade,

so the cornicing for Cassillis is being made at a specialist

workshop in Edinburgh by John Baxter and Fraser Grey.

A cast has been made from an undamaged section of the

original at Cassillis, and from this, John has created a mould.

There's 27 metres of this to do, so we can do maybe ten lengths,

and that will give them extra.

We don't like just to give them just the right amount. We'll give them a wee bit extra.

On the bench, layers of wet plaster are being built up.

If you like mess, this is great. There it is.

To make the cornicing stronger, it is reinforced with gauze and wood.

Then the plaster is shaped into cornicing.

A bit of indentation here, so we just put that up there,

and you'll find it'll...

When the mould goes over, it will be quite smooth now, I hope.

Yeah, looks good.

Well, this is what we got from the castle.

We're going to check it against it.

Yeah, that's perfect.

We feel we have got to keep protecting these buildings

and keep them tiptop.

I do get a sense of achievement.

It's good to know that it's going somewhere very expensive as well,

so it's always good to know that.

Cassillis started out as a fortress, a defensive home for the wild earls.

Kate's travelled back to the National Library of Scotland

to find out about the Kennedys who lived there during a very different time - the 1800s.

Now it's a peaceful time and the aristocrats no longer have to devote

themselves to battle, so instead, they devote themselves to pleasure -

to gambling, parties, drinking, and spending a huge amount of money.

The 13th Earl of Cassillis, Archibald Kennedy,

embodies the attitude of the day.

He's part of a generation of 19th-century earls who

reaped the financial rewards of lands that their predecessors

had gained, and lived life to excess, spending the family money

on transforming their old castles into lavish homes.

It was during this time that the dramatic extension was added

to Cassillis, which will now be the focus of Kieran's investigation.

He's come to Edinburgh, to the Royal Commission of the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland,

to find out about the architects responsible.

This book is a book about David Bryce,

who is one half of the partnership, Burn and Bryce,

who were responsible for the most significant changes to Cassillis House.

Their influence on Scottish architecture was really very great.

They brought a classical education in architecture to Victorian Scotland.

Burn and Bryce were responsible for the most radical

changes at Cassillis House.

What they came along and did was add the large new two-storey range

to the front of the building, creating a whole new

very Victorian home on the front of this ancient seat of that family.

They also added things to the skyline of the tower and so on, meaning that, substantially,

what we see today is an invention of the Burn and Bryce partnership.

The changes Burn and Bryce made to Cassillis were in the

Scottish Baronial style,

a romantic interpretation of medieval architecture,

which became the height of fashion during the 19th century.

Whilst there is no evidence to suggest who had a greater hand

in the transformation of Cassillis, it is most likely

to be David Bryce, which would reflect its pedigree.

Bryce was a superstar architect of the day and one of the greatest

proponents of the fantasy-like Scots Baronial style.

Kieran has come to one of his greatest buildings -

Guthrie Castle on the east coast.

Like Cassillis, it is a bold 19th-century addition to a much older building,

and it's a masterclass in this style.

There are things that we see that we can confidently call

David Bryce signatures, if you like.

They are also common to Cassillis, particularly the cylindrical

turrets kind of hanging off the corners of the building.

Also, the castellations, the stepped gables, the small details.

One thing I think is really distinctive is the little

bits of variation he puts into the building.

You can see each gable is slightly different,

has a slightly different set back.

Each bay window is differently detailed, and all of these kind of

modulations in the architecture seem very specific to Bryce's work.

What's happening at Cassillis is exactly what is happening here at Guthrie Castle.

Bryce is adding to the old, with modern additions,

but intended to give you more of a romantic skyline,

not just the functional, fortified skyline of the old tower house.

And adding to it new buildings, modern buildings,

what you end up with is something that is romantic, is a bit Disney,

but it's really, really pleasing.

I thought it was really important to come and see a building

by Bryce to understand what was his specific contribution to Cassillis.

I think, when we come here, we start to see similarities that

make me think that Bryce had a significant hand.

I think when we went to Cassillis the first time,

it was clear that there had been a series of additions

and adjustments that had described this trajectory from defensive

fortification to a house of pleasure and of family life.

That's a really interesting journey and one I understand so much better

now, knowing this was something that was going on across Scotland.

What I love is they didn't just decide to demolish the ancient buildings,

but they invented an architecture that could work together with it.

So you have, in a way, on one site at Cassillis, that continuity of

ancient Scottish history and modern Scottish lifestyles.

Back at Cassillis,

and the final push to get the restoration completed is on.

Outside, the biggest task of all is starting.

This next job will hopefully show more clearly than any other that Cassillis has been restored.

Scaffolding has been erected 25 metres tall.

Every inch of the tower needs repainting.

It's a paint job on a mammoth scale.

First, a fungicidal solution is applied to the render,

followed by a primer, then three coats of paint.

It's a painstaking task.

And nerve-wracking for Kate, as she had to choose the colour.

This job is going to take a long, long time.

You know, we are talking weeks and weeks.

It's a very big, expensive item on your schedule, and you want to

get it right, because you don't have the money to spend again to redo it.

It's such a big project.

I feel a little bit faint, actually, thinking about it.

You will probably be talking somewhere in the region

of 40-odd thousand pounds for that scaffold.

That's a lot of money. The last thing you want to do is miss a bit.

So a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure on them, and me,

and everybody else, to meet Kate's expectations.

Inside, if I make a mistake, it still costs money

but it's easy enough to change.

But this is just... It's like a quantum leap.

It's not a wee gable end of your bungalow, it's a massive castle.

And if you get it wrong, then, OK, another £40,000 scaffold, please,

and another couple of hundred litres of paint.

Get on with it. So, yeah, it has got to be done right.

You can imagine driving up this drive.

It's now going to be in-your-face, because it will be yellow.

SHE WHIMPERS

I just hope we get the colour right.

So, good weather and good taste are needed for the final

chapter of this restoration to be a success.

Before we see the results of this enormous restoration, owner Kate's

going to find out all that we have about her magnificent castle.

So 15,000 men set off to England at what became

known as the Battle of Solway Moss.

Gilbert Kennedy was taken prisoner.

So Henry VIII knew all about Gilbert Kennedy

and asked particularly that he was taken to the tower.

So, you know, our man was right there in the centre of things.

It's amazing.

We went to see Loch Leven Castle.

Architecturally, this became a clue to what Cassillis once must have

been like before its 19th-century additions.

And if I thought the 3rd Earl was pretty influential,

the 4th Earl was even bigger.

And he and Mary, Queen of Scots became, essentially,

terribly good friends. So she marries her cousin, Lord Darnley.

He and his valet are both found strangled.

What's really amazing is, guess who was there?

Gilbert Kennedy was in the house.

-Oh, my God!

-Pretty thrilling.

That is, like, an amazing piece of Scottish history. I mean, everyone knows that story.

This was an important family.

I mean, players on the national stage, even international stage.

They are an amazing family.

When Kate bought Cassillis, its future was threatened.

With a leaking roof and crumbling walls,

this Grade A listed property was in desperate need of help.

The biggest and most costly restoration we've ever seen,

Kate and the team have given their all to this incredible house.

And now it's been saved.

-Hello.

-Hello.

-It's lovely to see you.

-It's great to see you, too.

-And it's lovely to see the house such a brilliant colour!

-I know.

-After all that!

-I know.

You know, it was the thing that worried me the most,

and I just love it. Absolutely love it.

When you look at it now, do you still get that same

-sense of awe and wonder as when you first saw it?

-I think even more.

-Do you? Yeah.

-Yeah, now that it's all...

You come up, and it was always an imposing structure,

-but now, it looks so beautiful.

-It does.

It feels like a home, much more than it did so.

But it's a grand home, I guess.

So, can we go and have a look? Come on!

THEY LAUGH

The interior of Cassillis was dilapidated -

much of the medieval tower was without heating and running water,

and the lower ground floor was waterlogged.

The entrance hall was dismal and uninviting.

Now it's warm and stately.

Oh, Kate!

It's gorgeous.

What a beautiful colour.

It isn't orange.

-THEY LAUGH

-It's lovely!

-CAROLINE GASPS

-This is so beautiful.

-This is a lovely little lobby, isn't it?

-Yeah, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful area.

We don't have a big staircase in the house, so this is kind of THE room.

Yes, it's lovely.

The drawing room was tired, with the intricate ceiling crumbling away.

It's now an elegant space with many of the original features retained.

-It's pretty blue.

-It is so lovely!

-I was worried a little bit about the blue being too cold.

-It's not.

But it's got a sort of slight warmth about it.

It was a house that was begging for someone to treat it with respect.

-Do you think you've done it justice?

-I hope I've done it justice.

-Yeah.

I certainly feel it's got mod cons,

but I did always want to preserve the history and the ambience.

One of the biggest challenges they faced in this enormous

restoration was downstairs in the kitchen.

Do you know, I actually haven't seen it.

They've put it in while I have been away in Australia,

and I did come and try and look at it, and it was just covered...

-It was wrapped up.

-Shall we go and have a look?

-Yeah, let's go.

Oh, I'm really excited!

It took weeks to solve the extensive flooding problems and the scullery

and pantry walls needed rebuilding, but it's finally finished.

-Whoa!

-Kate!

-I know!

-It's dreamy.

Look at this!

-THEY BOTH GASP

-What's in there?

-It's the coffee machine.

-Oh, wow!

Look. Oh, look at this!

It is so stylish. This pattern is beautiful.

-Did you decide on this pattern?

-Well, the pattern...

-This is the original pattern. We took photographs of the floor.

-Oh, I see.

Having waited and worked long and hard,

now you are in the kitchen, what do you think?

Oh, yeah, can't wait to have my first cappuccino.

SHE GIGGLES

'Central to this restoration from start to finish

'has been project manager Jim.'

-How's it been?

-It's been great.

It's a job that we're never going to replace.

It's going to be really difficult to get the same scenery,

settings and just the history of the building. What more can you ask for?

It's a special place, isn't it?

Mm-hmm, and I have had the pleasure of working here.

The best part has been the small cupboard we found

when we never knew it was there. After that, probably the ballroom.

It's beautiful, isn't it?

We had so much work getting the services put through that,

and getting it to look back the way it is has been just great.

-Will you miss the house?

-Yeah.

Hey, there's always next year when we come back for the snagging.

Come back, hope there's a big list!

The stairs between the 19th-century house and the medieval tower were dark and dreary.

I love the fact you have decided to whitewash this,

because it ties the whole house together

and it's brought light into what was a very dark space.

-I know.

-I've never seen that.

I've never seen it before, until they painted it.

It's fantastic, isn't it?

This is actually one of my favourite views now of the whole house.

-If you look down, it's like living in the inside of a shell.

-Yes, it is.

Every part of this house has been restored and modernised

by its new owner, but what will former resident and descendant

of the Kennedy clan, Lady Elizabeth, make of this transformation?

Oh, my goodness!

It's so light. I love the colour.

It's particularly lovely that the house has been

bought by someone who has put so much effort and love into it.

Oh, this is lovely!

I love this. Fabulous.

It's sort of lovely to see it decorated like this, because it

was a very happy room, and we had lots of happy family times on here.

And it's super. You want to get big sofas and things in now, don't you,

and make it like that.

Make it live again and laugh again.

When we were growing up, this level was known as the basement,

where the dog slept. My father had his workshop.

This was the old basement kitchen, which... Oh, how glorious!

..which we used as a laundry.

How amazing. I never thought they would use this as a kitchen.

This was where, as children, we kept our bikes, all that sort of stuff.

It's lovely to see a house restored like this. It really is.

As the Kennedy family say goodbye to Cassillis,

this house is starting a new chapter.

This is your work, this place,

and it is an incredible thing you have done here.

You know, we've got lots of quirky little bits that we have left

and could easily have covered up.

But I personally like that. It gives me a bit of a thrill every time...

-But are you going to stay in this house?

-Well...

Because I've always had difficulty with imagining it as your home.

Do you know, it's one of those things, Caroline.

The fact of the matter is, I don't think I can.

Our personal circumstances have changed a bit in the last few months.

I certainly want to spend more time with my mum in Australia.

You know, the house and the project that we have achieved,

and the achievement we have done, is kind of an award in itself.

We don't necessarily have to live in it.

Either way, if you decide to stay, fabulous.

If you decide not to, I think it was your connection with the

history of the house that bound you up to bringing it back to its glory.

-But are you proud of what you have achieved?

-Oh, absolutely.

I am so proud I could burst.

It's just absolutely beyond my wildest expectations, actually.

It is a beautiful building and I think it always was

a beautiful building, but now it's just like a fairy-tale castle.

When construction started on Cassillis 600 years ago,

it was built to last.

It served as a fort,

a home and a pleasure palace for 21 generations of the Kennedy clan.

But in this last century, that history has taken its toll,

and the walls were beginning to crumble.

Salvation came not from Scotland,

but like a whirlwind from across the world.

Kate had very little association with this place, but what she did have

was a love of history, a crazy dream, and pretty deep pockets.

In the short time she has been at Cassillis,

she has made it strong again.

And she and her team, with their tireless dedication to its past,

have now guaranteed its future.

Next time on Restoration Home...

In a street of despair,

a house beyond hope has finally found a hero.

When I look at that house, I just think, wow.

But he's in a race against time.

I mean, I am actually living in a building site.

And he's staking everything on one wild gamble.

Technically, yeah, they could take the house off me.

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