Coltman Street Restoration Home

Once we walked through that gate, we were hooked.

When I look at that 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.

You happy?

We are way, way, way over budget.

I am actually living in a building site.

We all have to make sacrifices.

There are days when you 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. It's a dream that we're actually doing it.

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

It's just a nightmare.

I'm telling myself not to worry.

Because what can I do? I've got to finish the house.

In the city of Hull,

on Yorkshire's east coast, is number 114 Coltman Street.

It was built to be a fine family house, elegant and grand,

back in Victorian times, when Hull was a boom town.

It used to be the centre of a vital fishing industry,

and the docks were packed with boats

that brought great wealth to the city.

But as fishing declined, the city fell on hard times,

and the once-proud Coltman Street suffered

the effects of unemployment, poverty, and inner-city decay.

Number 114 was taken by the council and chopped up into flats.

Finally, for the last ten years, it's stood empty and abandoned.

But now, someone's come along who wants to save it.

When I look at that house, I just think, "Wow!"

Every time I see it, every time I come in the morning,

I'm just like, "Wow!"

His name is Simon Kelsey.

I love the fact that it's the tallest building on the street.

I love the fact that there are nine steps up to the front door.

It's just really nice. It makes it stand out.

It's all the things I've ever wanted.

It's got a massive garden.

It really is a terrific house and a great challenge.

Simon grew up around here and he believes that this neighbourhood

and this house are both worth saving.

This is my house.

This is the hallway.

And when it's all opened up,

the hallway will go to that back wall there.

Most people would be put off by the terrible condition of the house,

but Simon has a vision.

First thing I really need to do is just open the whole building up,

take away all these walls that shouldn't be here.

He's 47 years old, and used to be a nightclub bouncer,

though he now works as a self-employed gardener.

Simon's not married,

but has a girlfriend who lives 30 miles away in Lincolnshire.

Take out the old kitchen, replace the coving,

put the new skirting boards in, replace the windows.

Simon has renovated old houses before -

in fact, he did the last three he's lived in.

But he's no property developer - he just loves old houses.

I am very sad, but I do get very excited

when I see original spindles like this.

Yeah, the original features are what make the house.

I'm a house-geek, what can I say? LAUGHS

This is a much bigger project than anything Simon's tackled before.

His ultimate aim is to restore the exterior to its former glory,

and the interior to its original layout.

In the basement he's aiming to have a gym and a games room,

while on the ground floor there will be just two massive reception rooms.

The back one will become a kitchen-diner,

almost 40 feet wide.

On the first floor he'll have four huge bedrooms.

And in the attic there's space for four smaller rooms.

Hull City Council were keen to see the house restored

and they liked Simon's plans.

So they sold him the house at a very low price - £105,000.

I don't think anywhere in England

you could get a house that looks like that for just over £100,000.

But there's a catch.

As a Grade II listed building,

the council needs to be sure that the house will be restored properly.

So they made the sale with a conditional contract -

Simon has one year to complete the restoration.

And if he fails, the council can repossess the house.

If I don't manage to turn the building back into a house

and if the council don't sign it off,

I will have spent all the money I own on a house that isn't mine

and the council don't have to sign it over to me.

So, it's a huge risk.

The budget for the restoration is about £100,000.

Simon can raise half that sum from the sale of his previous house.

But he'll be relying on a special regeneration grant

to cover the rest.

March 2012...

..and the restoration has now begun.

The first job is to demolish the stud walls and false ceilings

that were put up 30 years ago

when the council converted the house into flats.

What about that!?

Simon's budget means he'll only be using professional builders

when he absolutely has to.

Today he's got a couple of local friends to help.

And, in order to concentrate on the restoration, he'll be

putting his gardening work on the back burner until it's finished.

Bit to go yet, but it's a start, isn't it?

But now, as the false ceilings and walls come down,

parts are revealed that have been covered up for three decades.

Taken off this ceiling now and we've found this lovely bit of detailing -

bit of corbelling.

They've found fragments of the original decorated plaster mouldings.

But it's in very poor condition.

Oh, dear.

Yeah. That is all wet.

The detail, the moulded detail, right across the hallway...

but I'm afraid to say, it's going to come out.

Oh, that is such a shame.

The damp has made the plaster loose and crumbly.

OK. Right.

This is the dodgy bit.

Some of the plaster decoration could be copied

if they can save some pieces.

Right, I've got a weight on my board now.

Right. Yeah.

So, this is it.

Just hold that steady.

Oh, hang on.

It's about to go.

Right.

Hang on, Paul.

Whoa!

I've got the board.

-And I've got this.

-You take your piece.

-OK.

Right.

Lovely.

Well, that was worth it.

Look what we've got.

Yes, so...

couldn't be saved on the ceiling, but that's beautiful.

That was pretty hairy. HE LAUGHS

This section should be enough for the design to be copied,

so that, eventually, the hallway can be

restored to its Victorian splendour.

'I've come to Hull to see the house now that all the false walls

'and ceilings have been removed.'

Ahh! Now, I can see this is really...

This is not looking like small flats any more,

-this has opened up and the light's flooding in.

-Completely, yeah.

It's extraordinary, cos now you can see the grand proportions again.

Yeah, it's opened it up, hasn't it?

Big spaces!

Well, this is, of course, two bedrooms,

I'm just in the process of moving this wall.

Right. And again, up here, Simon,

-the light just floods in, doesn't it?

-It really does.

Will you be able to use this whole house, you and your girlfriend?

Will you rattle round here?

Er, well, it's only really four bedrooms,

but I'll probably, initially, anyway,

just have a couple of lodgers in.

-OK.

-Just to keep it going, until we have kids.

Pay a few bills? Until you have children?

So, do you think you'll have children in this house?

-This is a family house.

-Yeah.

That's what, hopefully, we're going to do.

How important is it that these big houses...

are turned back into family homes,

as opposed to being studio flats?

I think for the street, for the community, it's very important.

You've got to have a few family homes.

If all the houses are one-bedroomed flats,

you get a very transient population.

It needs people to move in and live here.

People to invest in the area, but invest not as landlords

-but to invest for themselves and their own families.

-Yeah.

And that's how you regenerate a community.

So Simon is committed to the neighbourhood,

but why this house in particular?

I have always loved this house. I've always wanted this house.

When I first walked past here when I was ten,

I looked up and I thought, "Ohh, that is a house!"

It's a lot of house for 105, isn't it?

-Not on Coltman Street.

-Really?

Not in Hull.

It's not the most salubrious area, is that what you're saying?

Well, it has got problems. There are a lot of drug dealing down here,

a lot of prostitution, and it's essentially derelict,

so, yeah, it's the only way I could afford to buy it.

The area is known as the Hessle Road neighbourhood,

and Simon has been organising community projects for years.

'For example, back in 2005 he led a movement

'to rebuild an old fountain.'

It must have cost a lot of money. How did you manage to get people to pay for it?

What I did was, basically, went round all the primary schools

and did an assembly on how good it was to be from Hessle Road.

Basically, I promised the children, if they helped me raise some money,

I'd get a brick with their name engraved on it,

so that they could feel part of Hessle Road

and part of the history of Hessle Road.

And that's what I've done.

One of the nice things about getting children involved is that,

now that they're older, this fountain has never been vandalised.

That was one of the criticisms I had when I was doing the campaign.

-Really?

-Yeah, "Oh, what's the point of spending money?

"People will just break it." It's never been vandalised.

-It looks immaculate, actually.

-Hi, Simon.

-All right, Sophie?

-Sophie's one of the children on there.

-Are you one of the children on here?

-Are you.

-Come here.

-Come here.

Sophie, that's hilarious.

-This is Sophie Mellors.

-OK, let's see if we can find Sophie.

Sophie Mellors, there you are. Scott Mellors.

There we go.

Who's that?

This is what happens - little primary school children - look what happens.

And then they have their own children. Can we get baby out?

-We can't get her out, no.

-I've not met her.

-Am I on telly?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

While Simon attempts to regenerate the neighbourhood

and save his house, we're going to help

by finding out all we can about number 114.

Our historian Kate Williams,

and architectural expert Kieran Long have both come to Hull.

To begin the investigation, they're hitting the archives.

The first question - how did Coltman Street get its name?

Coltman Street, according to these sources,

was named for the Coltman family,

the original land owners on which Coltman Street was built.

And the next - who lived there?

What I've got here are the Victorian trade directories,

and the first mention of 114 Coltman Street at all,

is in this one from 1867.

And the person living there is Michael Wrangles Clarke - a tailor.

If an old building is worthy of note, The Buildings Of England

by Nikolaus Pevsner usually has the basic details.

Coltman Street does make the grade and is mentioned.

He says, yes, there are two buildings here of real interest -

numbers 114 and 168.

Now, 114 is our house.

He gives it a date - around 1854,

and says that they are by Benjamin Musgrave.

Now, that could be an architect or a builder,

but it's really exciting that we find here a name,

a kind of author of our house.

Searching through the Victorian census records,

Kieran's tracked down Benjamin Musgrave.

His profession is given as bricklayer and plasterer,

but it also says that he employed almost 50 people.

The thing that we have to understand is that

our modern idea of a tradesman, of a bricklayer, plasterer,

was quite different to what a bricklayer could be in this period.

If you were a master craftsman, you could be in charge of

a large contracting business,

you could also be well capable of designing buildings,

or whole rows of houses at the scale of Coltman Street.

Meanwhile, working through the trade registers,

Kate has made a surprising discovery.

It seems that someone very important used to live at number 114.

So, in the 1870s we've got a new resident.

It's Christopher Pickering.

That's a pretty significant name in Hull.

Christopher Pickering seems to be some kind of local legend.

The city has a number of roads and landmarks named after him.

We've got Pickering Park, we've got a school named after Mr Pickering.

And what he did, clearly from this 1882 trade register,

he is a smack owner.

That's a fishing boat - he owns a fishing trawler.

So, that's a big question, for me, really.

How come a man who's living in Coltman Street,

he's got a fishing boat - how come he gets to be someone

who gets a park named after him?

It's five months into the build

and Simon is on his way to a meeting

that will decide if he will enough money to finish the project.

We're going to the offices of the Townscape Heritage Initiative,

who are the people giving me a grant...hopefully.

As a listed building in a deprived area,

number 114 is eligible for a special grant towards the exterior work -

repairing the roof, the gutters and all the rotten windows.

Simon is hoping to get over £50,000.

So, yeah, the whole project wouldn't go ahead without this grant.

But winning one of these grants is a complicated business.

It's a process that generates a lot of paperwork.

And they've had a few of these meetings already.

But approval from the Townscape Heritage Initiative

is only the first step -

the grant application also needs approval from Hull City Council.

Ahh! I think it went all right.

It's just a question now of, they've got to add up

all those different quotes, see how much it comes to,

go to the council and find out if they're going to grant aid

that amount, and tell me how much I can have, basically.

Back at Coltman Street, Simon is moving in.

Though not into the house.

In this neighbourhood it's not safe

to leave a property empty overnight.

And while the house is still very dusty,

home is going to be a tent in the garden.

Simon's girlfriend Catherine has come to help.

Coincidentally, they started going out about the same time

that he began the build.

I think he's been searching for the right house for a long time,

and the right woman - which hopefully I am.

-It's starting to look like a tent.

-This is the moment of truth.

I'm not really a girly-girl, I don't really care about getting mucky and stuff.

-I like to get stuck in.

-Ta-da!

-How exciting!

It takes a lot of guts to take on a project like this.

I don't think I'd have the guts to do it on my own.

He does, and hopefully I can take away

some of his stress that he takes on.

We'll easily get a double bed in here.

I think we could have a double bed going across.

I'll manage to get the chest of drawers in, I reckon, as well.

That'll be quite nice.

Simon and Catherine are now thinking about getting married,

though that would be after the house is finished.

-Well, that first conflict test went quite well.

-Indeed.

I've never put up a tent so smoothly.

If only restoring the house itself was so easy.

Kieran discovered that Simon's house

was put up by a local builder, Benjamin Musgrave, in 1854.

But it's regarded as a building of note.

Now Kieran has come to try and find out what makes it so special,

starting with how it fits in to the street.

I think every city in the UK has a street or streets a bit like this.

It's a typical 19th-century inner suburban street,

and all of this amazing mix of characters

and styles of houses in it.

But by far the grandest house in this street

is the one right behind me -

this beautiful, grand, elevated, very fine house,

which is like the manorial house

on this pretty typical suburban street.

But there's nothing grand about its state of repair.

I think, when you get round to the back of the building,

you start to realise the size of the task that's on - saving it.

And really, it's just a story of terrible neglect.

For me, the building is just months away,

or just a couple of winters away

from being unsaveable,

so the task of restoring it is really urgent.

It's the same story inside.

Most of the original features are gone.

This house is, more or less, destroyed internally.

It's kind of heartbreaking as you walk around.

But this staircase is the one little fragment,

the one coherent piece,

of the kind of elegance that this interior would once have had.

It has all of these fine balusters

and this lovely continuous handrail winding around

and, for me, this staircase is really special and important

because it just hints at the elegance that once was,

in what is now a building site.

But this restoration is about more than just rebuilding the past.

For me, this is a really, really important restoration.

Not just of because of what the building is,

but because of where it is.

To some people, the idea of restoring the original features

that may have been lost from a Victorian building,

in a place that has other problems, social problems,

you know, problems with deprivation and poverty,

it might seem like a luxury. And perhaps it is in one way.

In another way, the kind of investment in pride

and in quality that an area like this hasn't seen for some time,

is something that can't be underestimated.

So, I think what Simon's doing here, and the way he's doing it,

make it one of the most important restoration projects

we've ever looked at.

But Simon doesn't have enough money to do the restoration.

Everything hinges on getting that grant to pay for the exterior work.

And now, three weeks after he applied through

the Townscape Heritage Initiative, a decision has come back.

Unfortunately, last night we discovered

that we've been turned down for the grant.

The Townscape Heritage Initiative had approved me,

but it's actually administered by the council,

and they turned it down.

I've given them, practically, my life savings

and I've got nowhere else to go!

Simon's problems are snowballing.

The Townscape Heritage people have asked the council to reconsider,

but each delay is bringing him closer

to his completion deadline at the end of February.

Kate discovered that in Victorian times,

Simon's house was the home of Christopher Pickering -

a famous name here in Hull.

The legend goes that he rose from the gutter

to become the owner of a whole fleet of fishing boats,

and that he died a man of immeasurable wealth.

So Kate's mission is to separate truth from legend,

and discover the real Mr Christopher Pickering.

She's starting in the picture collection at Hull Maritime Museum.

This picture of Mr Pickering, he is the ideal Victorian master.

These are the men who built Victorian Britain.

He's dignified, he's respectable, he's wealthy.

Everything about this photograph says,

a man of status, a man of importance.

He's someone that everyone would look up to.

To see just how Pickering made his fortune,

Kate is going through the city's Victorian shipping records.

What I've found here is the register of all the boats in Hull,

and Christopher Pickering features pretty prominently.

The first boat he ever bought - his first fishing boat -

it's the George Peabody, and he bought that in 1872.

And he bought that with a mortgage of £1,000,

which is about £40,000 today.

So that's a pretty significant investment he's making.

Before the year's even out, he's buying another one.

This is the Grace Darling.

And then, four years later, pays off the mortgage for this boat, George Peabody,

and buys another one - the Titus Salt.

The register shows that over the next decade,

Pickering acquired 21 sailing trawlers.

But then everything changes - along comes steam.

The steamboat changes everything, because simply the steamboat

doesn't have to wait for the wind, like the sailboat.

They can go out further, they can carry more.

Pickering saw straight away that the steam trawler was the future.

Here we have the first steamship that he bought.

He called it Romulus, it was one of the first steamships in Hull.

And this is hugely expensive, but it pays off.

And when the money began to flow,

everyone wanted to follow Pickering's lead.

By the end of the year he's bought three more,

and he keeps on buying them because these boats,

they can carry a huge amount and also, they can go further.

They go to Iceland, they go to Russia, they go to North Africa

and this is when he really starts making big money.

So Pickering was the trailblazer who brought steam power to Hull.

Back on Coltman Street, there's been some news about Simon's grant.

The council have done a U-turn

and decided to give him the money after all.

So, Simon will now be getting £56,000

towards the work on the outside of his house.

The scaffolding has gone up, and work has begun in earnest.

One of the first jobs is to repair the guttering,

but they've already run into problems.

Well, the aim was to just change the fascia board and put new gutters on.

What we actually found was the roof joists

and both wall plates were completely rotten.

Dry rot all the way along.

So, we've had to take six layers of brick off,

we've had to cut off nearly all the ends of the joists

and replace with what you can see here,

and build it back up.

The state of the brickwork on the side of the house

is much worse than expected.

The wall's pretty rotten. I mean, you can see the good bricks

lower down, the darker bricks, with a nice smooth face.

And then an awful lot of bricks which are

delaminated and quite rough and uneven.

And then further along - holes, big, big holes.

So we haven't budgeted for the number of bricks that need replacing,

so we've got a bit of a job on our hands.

The grant was enough to cover the builders' original quotes.

But Simon will have to pay these extra costs,

and that will leave him less to spend on the inside of the house.

Kieran discovered that number 114

was constructed by a local builder named Benjamin Musgrave.

And further up Coltman Street Musgrave also built Number 168.

Musgrave was a master builder, not an architect,

but did he have his own style?

It's great to see another example of Benjamin Musgrave's work,

because I've started to get the impression that he did have

some design skill.

In the context of Coltman Street,

which is very mixed, I think his buildings stand out.

Look, just a bit higher than the others and bit more grand.

These door cases so distinctive and so much like 114.

And there's just a general sense of composition.

I think this is a builder with some real skill as a designer too.

While Musgrave's two houses stand out from the rest,

Kieran has noticed there's

something odd about a lot of the other houses too.

On a terraced street you'd expect the houses to match.

When you look at the houses along Coltman Street, you start to notice

that there are pretty wild variations between them.

We talk about Victorian terraces in our cities,

and everybody's got Victorian terraced streets,

but, actually, they're not coherent, are they?

We see behind me Venetian windows,

we see bay windows on the ground floor.

Further along we see bay windows on ground and upper floor,

and even variations in the dormer windows on the roof line.

This tells you that,

actually these buildings weren't developed all at once,

these are small builders, building two or three houses each at a time,

probably side-by-side.

And that accounts for the quite extreme stylistic variation,

within the kind of strict parameter of the Victorian terrace.

This might explain why number 114 is different from its neighbours,

but it doesn't explain why it's so much grander.

Kieran needs to find out how this upper-class house

ended up on an inner-city street.

It's the middle of October,

and the old rotten windows are being knocked out.

Simon has now moved out of the tent, and into the house,

even though it's dustier and messier than ever before.

Once the scaffolding came up

we really had to start sleeping in the house,

just purely for security.

There are days when you think,

"Oh, if only I had somewhere clean to sit."

I am actually living in a building site.

It's pretty grim, really, but...

..things you've got to do!

And things are getting done.

New sash windows have been delivered,

and are being fitted by a team of carpenters.

It's vital to get the house water-tight

before the weather gets any worse.

Fingers crossed, by Christmas the roof should be fixed.

Fingers crossed, the gutters will be working,

the down pipes will be in and all the windows and doors will be done.

So, basically by...Christmas...

the outside of the house should be done.

Basically.

Definitely.

Hopefully.

Maybe!

To make real progress on all these outdoor jobs, they need good weather.

But the autumn of 2012 was one of the wettest on record.

And December was even worse.

It's now five days to Christmas.

We were hoping to get the outside finished today.

The down pipes are in, most of the pointing's done...

We've been delayed by the weather

and today it's absolutely pouring down.

So, we're just putting up a stud wall instead.

So, it's all a bit like wading through treacle today.

Ten months in and we've just got the windows in.

The house is still leaking when it rains,

and when you think that we were going to try and do it in a year,

it doesn't look two months from being finished, does it?

It's getting desperate. The budget's out of the window.

I don't have any way of borrowing money.

And, of course, the grant won't go up, so when it's gone, it's gone.

But the outside is going to look fantastic.

So... I'm still upbeat.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

I think.

Kill me!

Christmas has come and gone,

and a wet December has given way to a freezing January.

With just six weeks until

the council's completion deadline expires,

it's time I caught up with Simon and Catherine.

-Hi?

-Hello.

-Hello.

-Hello. How are you?

I'm good, thank you. How are you?

-Nice to see you.

-I haven't seen you for six months!

-You've changed your hair.

-I have changed my hair!

And a little bit's changed here.

Yeah, it's meant to be done by the end of February,

but we didn't get the house watertight until last week.

It's been so difficult just getting any jobs finished.

Everything's bigger than you expect, everything's wetter than you expect,

-everything takes more time and more money.

-How are you feeling about it today?

-Er...

Well, you're here - it's great. Hello.

Put the kettle on while you're here.

There must be mornings when you wake up and think, "What am I doing?"

-You know, it's an emotional rollercoaster.

-Yeah.

-It sounds like a cliche, but it really is.

-Yeah.

You get a room plastered and it's like, "Wow, it looks great."

Um, and then sometimes you think, "How can we ever do this?"

'Catherine lives 30 miles away and works full time.

'But she spends her weekends helping with the house.'

This is a massive project, isn't it?

It is massive.

There's so much to do, but it is coming together, very slowly.

Once we get some plumbing and running water inside,

then it'll be much better.

How do you manage, cos you've only got a loo in that corner?

Yeah, which we flush with a bucket of water.

-Once it is done, it will be amazing.

-What do you love about it?

Just the grandness and you can tell it's going to be a nice family home.

-Can you?

-Yeah. You can, sort of, see it,

see the piano in a room and where the sofa's going to go

and everything like that, and where the dog's going to sleep.

-Things like that.

-THEY LAUGH

But the danger's still there

that the dream will turn into something else.

It could just all be going into a house that you'll never own.

It would be a nightmare.

That is exactly it. I'm basically... buying the house off the council,

I pay the money. Well, I've paid the money,

I do all the work,

and then they decide whether they transfer it over.

If I fulfil their contractual obligations.

And there are lots of ways they could say no,

and technically, yeah, they could take the house off me.

HE INHALES SHARPLY It's quite worrying when you say it like that!

Let's not talk about that.

But whether he wants to talk about it or not,

the council's deadline is approaching fast.

While outside, the scaffolding is still up,

and indoors they've barely started.

Kate is investigating Christopher Pickering,

who lived in Simon's house back in Victorian times.

She discovered that from 1872 he began to build up his fishing fleet.

Now she's found a book that dates from 1915,

when Pickering was one of the city's greatest businessmen.

This book really shows how important Christopher Pickering was

in the fishing industry, and we've got his picture here.

And what's really great is he's written an autobiographical essay

in which he talks about his life. And he says,

he started at the very bottom.

He started as a ten-year-old boy in a fish smokery in a factory.

It was very hard work. And he ends Freeman of the City of Hull,

and he's chairman of six fish companies.

So, an incredible rise, really, and very Victorian.

And as Pickering expanded his own fortunes,

he turned Hull into a boom town.

Hull was a metropolis of fish.

We've got 500 trawlers sailing from Hull,

and they're bringing in a huge amount of fish.

It says here 3 million hundredweight of fish, annually.

That's the equivalent of 150,000 tonnes.

And there was a reason that the country needed ever more fish -

because, long before burgers and pizzas, there was

a new food craze sweeping the nation.

We think that fish and chips is a very traditional English meal,

but actually it wasn't until

the second half of the 19th century that anyone even tasted it at all.

Cos before then, fish was always smoked or dried

and it was very difficult to get hold of.

So when fish and chips came along, it really took off.

It was convenience food, it could be eaten in the street.

And this is the time when people are really flooding into the big cities.

They wanted something that was hot, that was cheap

and they could eat fast, and that was fish and chips.

It became Britain's most popular food,

and that was thanks to people like Christopher Pickering.

When Christopher Pickering lived on Coltman Street,

there would have been massive wooden gates on the side arches.

Determined to restore as many original features as possible,

Simon commissioned new ones.

They're as close as anyone can tell

to what the Victorian gates were like.

We are slowly bringing the house, dragging it kicking and screaming

back into the mid 19th century. It's closer.

Carpenters Gavin and Simon have made them in the workshop

Now they've come out to fit them.

Oh, dear.

Er, it looks a bit... it looks a bit wide.

Oh, my goodness, it is a bit wide.

The wooden arch doesn't quite fit the brick arch.

That wall's out of plumb, that's what it is.

That one's all right, but that one's out about an inch.

It was measured perfectly, but of course, the walls aren't straight,

so you can't fit straight wood into a wobbly wall.

The carpenters thought they were in for an easy day.

I don't mind making them, that's all right, that's the nice bit.

It's when you get this. Hmm...

If they change the new wood to fit the old bricks

the whole thing will end up crooked.

There's no choice but to shave the bricks straight.

Everything takes longer than you expect. Everything.

This is no exception.

CARPENTERS CHATTER

I've had enough.

I'll be glad when it's all screwed in and done and anchor bolt up.

And then doors are on, and everything.

HE SIGHS

What about that, eh?

And they almost fit.

Almost.

I'm surprised how different it looks, actually.

It looks a lot... It kind of looks like a castle, or something.

The grand gates certainly do make number 114

stand out from the rest of the street.

Kieran has gone back to the archives to find out why Simon's house

seems to be in a different class from its neighbours.

He's going through the old maps to discover what happened

to the city of Hull through the Victorian period.

This is a lovely copy of a map from 1842,

which shows Coltman Street on it.

Though at this point with hardly any buildings on it at all.

This next map is from 1855, just 13 years later.

By this time, we can see that several plots have been developed.

And here is our house.

This map is from 1875,

20 years after the Ordnance Survey maps we looked at.

And we can see there are buildings almost the length of the street on both sides.

But it's a different kind of tipping point now,

and actually it's not the suburban dream it once was.

114 Coltman Street is a rather grand and refined home for a gentleman,

and this street was supposed to be a setting for those kinds of houses,

a lovely retreat on the edge of the city.

But the 19th century in Hull didn't really play out that way.

The booming population meant that Coltman Street was swallowed up

and it wasn't really the gentlemanly classes that moved here,

it was the clerical and working classes.

And that accounts for the diversity on the street and makes 114

a rather charming survival of an original suburban dream.

And Simon is determined to restore that dream.

He's got the wooden gates back, and now in a workshop

on the outskirts of Hull, Paul Richardson is making

new copies of another original feature - the cast-iron railings.

It's difficult work, it's very time-consuming work.

But it's an opportunity as well.

You've got the chance to look back in history,

see how these things are done and then use the modern techniques

to try and emulate what others did before you.

The opportunities don't come up all the time,

and they're an absolute joy.

And it seems that Simon's railings are particularly special.

This one was prestigious, it really was.

You can tell that by the spacing on the railings.

The bigger and the heavier they can be, the more status you've got.

And these are certainly, for this town,

particularly heavy, particularly big.

Somebody was really trying to make a statement

when these were originally installed.

Kate found out that Christopher Pickering made a fortune from fish,

but that doesn't explain why there are

so many things named after him here in Hull.

But now, Kate's found something that makes everything clear.

Well, this book is fantastic,

it's the Lord Mayor's scrapbook over the years

and it's full of invitations and parties.

And it really shows us how important Mr Pickering is,

because what I've got here

is all about the opening of Mr Pickering's park.

He gives this money so that the city of Hull can have a park,

and this is a pretty fabulous park.

You've got bowling green, a croquet lawn, a grand bandstand area,

lakes and fountains.

It's really pretty impressive.

At the time, this would have been a complete extravaganza.

But the park was just the beginning -

Pickering gave money to build homes for the poor,

as well as a long list of worthy causes in Hull.

So, he's a pretty significant philanthropist.

Actually, over the course of his life,

Mr Pickering gave £150,000 to charitable causes in Hull.

And that's the equivalent of £8 million today,

so he made a lot of money out of Hull, but he also gave a lot back.

February 2013.

It's been one year since Simon took on Mr Pickering's old house.

The scaffolding has just come down,

but number 114 is still a long way from finished.

Hi, Michael. How are you?

Yes, very well, thank you. Yourself?

Good, yeah.

Simon's contract with Hull City Council states that,

should he fail to finish the restoration within one year,

they are legally entitled to throw him out.

But there is a clause in the contract whereby the council

can grant Simon an extension to the completion deadline.

Now, with a few days to go, surveyor Michael Nicholas is here

to assess whether Simon has made enough progress

to justify giving him more time to finish.

So when are you hoping that it's dried out

-and you can actually get on with this then?

-Who knows?

Cap it in a different sort of cement.

What have you done then? Have you just sanded this up?

Blowtorched it, jet-washed it, scraped it.

This is the shape that it used to be. You can see where the cove is.

How much of this coving do you think you'll be able to save?

Well none of it. To be honest, it needs taking out now

before it falls and kills someone. SURVEYOR LAUGHS

How many staff do you have working for you now then?

Staff? I don't have staff.

I mean, the only thing I'm worried about is that...

is it going to get done in six months?

Of course it'll get done in six months.

Look at it, this is a lick of paint, literally just a lick of paint.

Watch your feet. So...

Yes, you still look a bit worried.

Well... I think it looks great.

I think you've clearly made a lot of progress,

but if I said to you how complete is this -

what percentage of completion is this, what would you say?

I would say...65%.

-65%.

-Yeah, just under two-thirds.

-Right.

-OK, great.

-Thank you very much for your time.

The surveyor will be submitting a report to the council.

The question is - will 65% completed be enough?

Unfortunately, that isn't Simon's only problem.

I didn't want to tell him I'm down to my last 20,000.

And that's what my last plumbing quote was.

HE LAUGHS So actually, I've run out of money.

Five months on,

and there's an important delivery for number 114.

Nice one!

And Simon is still here,

because the council did agree to extend his completion deadline.

All the heating and plumbing is finally being installed

and now they've brought the boiler.

It's a great day, quite a contrast to when Simon was up against

the council's completion deadline.

It was the biggest stress. Just thinking that they could

walk in, say, "You've had 12 months to do it up.

"This isn't what we wanted. Can we have the keys, please?

"Be out by lunchtime." And that was a real possibility.

So luckily, Hull City Council are very understanding.

So they gave us a six-month extension...

and we've had five months of that.

Even with the extension, it's still a struggle -

money's very tight, and he's had other problems.

Oh, of course, this hasn't helped. I broke this about six weeks ago

and, er, so I've been in a cast ever since.

Luckily I'm right handed. Says me pointing at the hand.

I've got a bit of tendon damage in that hand as well.

I really am in the wars.

This house is breaking me. It's trying to.

But now, once the plumbing has gone in, other jobs can be completed too.

So Simon is hoping that it won't be long before the house will be

good enough for the council to sign over full ownership.

By next week we'll have water, we'll have boilers.

We'll have radiators on the walls. So it'll look like a house.

There'll be a gas safe certificate.

There'll be electric safety certificates.

It'll be certified as a house.

And so I think that will be enough.

I am...87% sure of that.

87 and a half! HE LAUGHS

When we began our investigation, it was clear

there was something special about number 114 Coltman Street.

But the connection to Christopher Pickering

makes it truly significant in the history of Hull.

Now the time has come to share with Simon and Catherine

all that we've learnt about their home.

You can't live in Hull and not be aware of the name.

So, yeah, it's amazing to find out that Christopher Pickering

lived in the house that I've now got.

I mean, I used to work on Pickering Park.

-Did you?

-Yeah, I was a parkie there. Yeah, years ago.

-Oh, my goodness.

I worked on his park, opened by Mrs Christopher Pickering, it say there.

-But it is fascinating to see it all.

-Isn't it.

Fascinated by the pictures of Christopher Pickering and his wife.

They're just amazing pictures.

-I know, we'll have to get that framed.

-Yeah.

I feel very proud to be part of it. Cos really what I'm doing is just...

I'm bringing the building back to life for a start,

but just carrying on this sort of

architectural history of Hull, really.

Restoring a little bit of what he was trying to do.

So I'm really pleased. It's amazing that you found it all.

When we first saw number 114,

the whole building was in a perilous state.

The rotten windows were boarded up, the roof leaked,

even the bricks and stonework were crumbling.

But look at it now...

There's still work to do inside,

but the exterior is finished.

-Hello!

-Hello.

-It looks fantastic.

-Do you like it?

-You're brilliant. You're absolutely brilliant.

-It's looking superb.

-Well, thank you.

Yeah, it's not finished yet, but it's getting there.

-It's transformed, isn't it?

-Do you like the pond?

I love your pond. It's beautiful and it's...pristine.

Yeah, it's amazing actually cos it used to be full of litter, this yard,

-and now no-one throws litter in.

-So no cans thrown in.

No, you don't ever see anything thrown in.

-I mean, that's a real lesson, isn't it?

-Yeah.

If you make something beautiful, people will respect it, look after it.

Yeah. We just need the rest of the street to be like that now.

You've set an example, there's no question.

For almost a year and a half, Simon has been struggling

to restore this house, not knowing if or when

the council would finally sign full ownership over to him.

And there's one last condition that still needs to be satisfied -

they won't hand over the contract until the plumbing is finished.

We've got a lot of plumbing to do. I mean, lots of the gas pipes are in

and a lot of pipes are laid, but we still haven't got water in the house.

So that's what you're waiting for.

Yeah, were just waiting for the plumbers. So we are incredibly close.

A week of plumbing will do it.

When Simon began work, the house had been abandoned for ten years.

Damp, rot and vandalism had done their worst.

So it may not be finished, but it has come an awful long way...

It's looking so beautiful.

-It looks nice, doesn't it?

-Oh, it's fantastic.

-Yeah.

Yeah, we... That corbel up there was original.

We had that cast so we've got it all the way round.

And all the rest we made up.

It's gorgeous. This whole hallway, actually, is looking so beautiful.

-SHE GASPS

-Look at the light coming in!

That's what I always said, wasn't it?

How did you have the vision to see it could look like this?

I don't know, I just...

I-I-I could see it.

Simon and Catherine spent months living in a building site.

That bed is now gone, and the room is unrecognisable.

-Catherine!

-Hello.

-How are you, darling? Lovely to see you.

The last time I saw you in this room it was colder in here

than it was outside and it was below freezing.

Oh, yeah, it's so much warmer now. It's just a happier place to be.

But it is looking so beautiful. You must be proud of it.

Yeah, it's getting there. It's still hard work though.

'It may be hard work

'but Simon's enthusiasm for the project remains undimmed.'

I'm excited about the stuff that we haven't done yet.

You know, the basement is going to be fantastic.

And the garden, I mean, the garden is going to be amazing.

We're going to have gravel drives, we're going to have a water feature,

we're going to have waterfalls. It's going to be fantastic.

Unicorns, wildebeest! SHE LAUGHS

This house has meant a lot to Simon for a very long time.

When I was a boy, when I was little

I would walk around here and see the steps, the columns.

I remember thinking what an amazing house it is.

I did always think one day I would live in a house like that.

How does it feel to have done that?

It feels great. It really does. I do feel I've...

It sounds corny, but it is like a childhood ambition.

So I've actually...

Well, I say tick it off the list,

when it's finished, I'll be ticking that off the list.

It is a nice thing to do.

It's great for me and Catherine, but it's great for the street.

-It's good for the area.

-It's important for you, that,

building up the local community and improving it.

Yeah, I've always believed if you want to live in a better area,

you don't need to move, you just need to make your area better.

Oh, beautiful, beautiful balcony!

This wasn't here.

'There's one thing that still worries me about this project.'

My concern is that this build could go on for 40 or 50 years.

-It really could.

-Are you going to finish it?

Yeah, I mean, we won't stop, we'll just keep going.

We don't want to be spending our lives doing it.

-You want to live a life as well as doing the house.

-Exactly.

We want to get married and have children enjoy the lawn.

You know, we want to do all that.

Simon and Catherine's future lies in a house with a rich past -

a history that's important enough to be commemorated

by the city council and the mayor.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm delighted to have been invited here today

to officially unveil a blue plaque of Christopher Pickering.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Simon and Catherine's house may now be a city landmark,

but that's not all.

Just as it was for Christopher Pickering,

it's once again a home.

There are some pretty fundamental differences between Simon Kelsey

and Christopher Pickering.

For a start, Simon's never had a park named after him,

though he did work in one for a bit.

And Simon's never built a beautiful house

by throwing pots of money at it.

Actually, he's trying to save one by spending as little as possible,

but both men are champions of this area.

Ever since Simon first spotted this house

when he was just ten years old, he fell in love with it

and he dreamed of living in a house with pillars and steps.

I think that childhood dream is going to have a ripple effect

throughout this area.

One man, one house, but I think,

like Christopher Pickering,

Simon is going to make a difference.

On the next Restoration Home, a magnificent barn...

Whoever built this was somebody who was deeply in touch with

the latest thinking on architecture.

..with a grand past.

He's essentially a man with a hot-line to the king.

Now a brave couple want to save it from ruin.

I love the place. Absolutely love it.

It's so exciting.

-But they're doing it alone.

-This has become extremely hard.

More than I could have possibly imagined.

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