Friars Mill The Hairy Builder

Want to know about British history?

You better get your hands dirty.

Don't bury your head in a guidebook.

Ask a brickie...

a chippy

or a roofer.

Ever since I were a boy, I've had a passion for our past.

So, I'm going to apprentice myself to the oldest masonry company

in the country.

Mastering their crafts and scraping away the secrets

of Blighty's precious piles.

From castles to cathedrals.

Music halls to mansions.

Palaces to public schools.

These aren't just buildings,

they're keys to opening up our past and bringing it back to life.

'Today, I'm in Leicester helping to restore

'one of the Midlands' most historically important treasures -

'the fantastic 18th-century Friars Mill.

'I'll discover how it's being brought back to life...'

-Of course, the roof would have burned out.

-Yes,

yes, all the roof burnt off.

'I help to clean up the lifeblood of the mill - the River Soar.'

You can see little piles of otter droppings all the way along there.

Ooh, yes, I think I got a whiff of the countryside.

'And an iconic feature is put back in its place.'

That's another change on the skyline of Leicester.

Leicester is one of the oldest cities in the country

and certainly has plenty to shout about.

This grand old city

is the birthplace of grand old Sir David Attenborough.

And also the resting place of poor old King Richard III,

recently found plonked underneath a car park for half a millennium.

Bless him.

But it's not just celebrated as the resting place of royalty.

Leicester is famed for its colourful textiles,

its football team's nifty skills, and its unique industrial heritage,

locked away in intriguing buildings like this one, Friars Mill.

Built around 1739,

Friars Mill is believed to have been the city's first factory

and therefore holds huge historical importance in this area.

By the 20th century, it was not only Leicester's biggest mill,

it was also the leading textile factory in Britain.

The factory closed ten years ago and it fell into disrepair.

But thanks to Leicestershire County Council,

it's currently undergoing a massive £6 million renovation.

But before I meet the builders on site,

Matthew Ellis is going to give me his first-hand knowledge

of what life was like here when it was a bustling workplace.

Hello, Matthew. I'm Dave.

-Dave, how are you?

-Pleased to meet you.

-Nice to meet you, too.

So, Matthew, what's your connection with the mill?

Dave, my family owned the mill for about a 100-year period

-from the 1880s to the 1980s.

-Right.

Tell us a bit about the mill, Matthew.

It was very much a family atmosphere, it really was.

I, certainly, as a child...

My school holidays were spent very much here, working through

the different departments and then when I left college

I came and worked here full-time.

The mill spun wool and in the late 19th century it was churning out

over 30 tonnes of yarn per week.

Sadly, the company was taken over in the 1990s.

The family, unfortunately, had to leave.

My father retired at the tender age of 50.

I then went on into different lines of business.

I left the textile trade, sadly.

And do you feel very proud to be part of the biggest and oldest mill

-in Leicester?

-Very much so.

It's been very sad to...

over the last 20 years, to see the decline, but now it's,

I guess I feel a kind of relief to see it rebuilt again.

There have been times when I've said, sadly, that I'm glad

my father's not here to have seen what's happened to the mill.

But now, with this wonderful work that's going on,

I'm just delighted it's being rebuilt to its former glory.

-Have you got some photographs, Matthew?

-Yes, I have, Dave.

This is an album that was put together by my aunt

and given to my grandfather on his 70th birthday.

Various pictures of the mill, the workers that we had here.

At one stage, there were 400 employees working in the mill.

-Wow!

-And it gives you a good idea of working life.

The employees who were working on the strimming mills,

the dyeing machines.

Do you know what I love about places like this?

It's more than just bricks and mortar,

it's the stories of lives lived.

It's everything, it's so important.

Oh, it is, absolutely.

You look at all the faces in the album here.

It would be wonderful for those that are still with us to be able to have

the opportunity to come back and see what's being done here.

I'm sure they'd be very welcome.

'It's clear the mill was once a hive of industry,

'spinning wool and producing tremendous amounts of yarn.

'But sadly a few years after the factory closed down,

'it was largely destroyed by a fire.'

'Construction firm William Anelay's are working hard to restore

'this neglected building.'

How do, Andy? I'm Dave.

-Pleased to meet you, Dave.

-Pleased to meet you.

-Andy Stamford.

-Now, Andy, you're the site manager.

-I am, yes, for my sins, yes.

Tell me about the mill.

Basically, Friars Mill, it's one of the last standing textile mills left

-in Leicester city itself.

-Yeah.

The roof on Friars Mill, that burnt off completely.

-How did the fire start, Andy?

-Well, there's a few rumours.

One of the rumours was that it started with a firework

that got into the roof and caused that.

They did have a few sort of vandals and that in the building.

After the fire in 2013,

the Council realised that this historical building

needed to be revived.

And it's being transformed into modern office spaces.

With it being a listed building, like Grade II listed,

how do you get away with the modern works?

We're working closely with conservation, local councils.

This is how we're able to put more life back into the old buildings.

I'd love to look inside.

-Yeah, not a problem. We'll take you in there now.

-Thank you.

'50 skilled builders are working on this mammoth restoration project.

'And although they're completely revamping the site,

'they will remain sympathetic to the original architecture,

'so that it doesn't lose its charm.'

So this, Dave, this is the new works,

-the new build part of the restoration project.

-Right.

It isn't that you can't do things with listed buildings.

You've just got to be sympathetic about how you do it

and making sure that you're thinking about the building all the time.

What was left of the original building?

Originally, it was just basically an old shell.

There was fire damage on the upper floors, and the first floor,

and a really, really damp building, really old, damp building.

All the windows had been blocked in.

A lot of them fire damaged.

But it was actually blocked up

just to make it secure, to keep vandals out.

So, are these new windows, Andy, or refurbished?

They're all new windows, steel windows.

-Double-glazed, too.

-They're double-glazed as well.

So, the worst thing with an old building like this is,

the building's out of level.

There's nothing plumb, there's nothing square.

The building actually falls down 150mm to the far corner,

so the windows, we had to have them specially made, specially measured.

So far, the builders have used 15,000 bricks,

150 tonnes of concrete

and 60 tonnes of timber to restore the mill.

So we're heading up to the top of Friars Mill

to see the new constructed roof.

-Wow.

-There's not many companies can produce a sort of roof,

-timber work like this.

-It's so impressive, isn't it?

They are actually created exactly the same

as it was before the fire etc.

Good grief. And, of course, the roof would have burnt out.

Yes, yes, all the roof burnt off.

So this is the new timber, you see.

But the weight of the timber,

I can't get over the strength of the structure.

It's magnificent.

Generally, everything's done as much as possible

using traditional methods.

Like they did in the old days when it first was built.

-You love this, don't you?

-I do, yeah.

I'm passionate about what I do, really.

-Definitely.

-Do you do any do-it-yourself at home?

Or are you a shelf shirker?

I do, as I say, I built my own house and things.

So, I'm passionate about what we do.

And this, to me, is the cream of jobs and projects we do, basically.

-Brilliant. Can't say fairer than that, can you?

-No.

'There's a vast amount to do.

'Time I lent a hand, and I've heard there's an interesting couple of

'carpenters working on-site.'

Robyn! Maggie!

-I'm Dave.

-Hello.

-Hello.

You two are rather unique, aren't you?

THEY LAUGH

Don't think I've ever met a mother and daughter builders before!

THEY LAUGH

We quite enjoy it. We are restorers.

And we work with wood, obviously, to bring it in ready for the varnish.

Building sites must be different places now to what they used to be

-20 years ago?

-We've been all over the country on sites,

and we haven't been to a bad one yet.

We turn heads, obviously, when we first arrive.

With your pink helmet! THEY LAUGH

All the guys have been good, that we've come across over the years.

What made you want to follow your mother into the business?

Decided that this is what I wanted to do. I enjoy it so much.

We have a great laugh, and we work with such great teams as well.

'Well, if I'm going to earn my stripes,

'I'd better get my hands dirty.'

Right, so this is for edging with the small...

You can help prep, Robyn.

Are you going to have a cup of tea? THEY LAUGH

Ready?

'Once these oak floorboards have been sanded down,

'they'll be ready to be varnished.'

It looks like you're a dab hand at this, Dave.

-Have you done it before?

-I spent a month last summer on my boat

on my hands and knees on the metal hull, with one of these things,

doing the paint, and I vowed, "never again".

And look where I've found myself! THEY LAUGH

Walking around this site,

I can imagine the hustle and bustle that was the life of a busy factory.

For many of its workers, the mill became a home from home.

Back in the 1960s,

Peter Arnold worked in sales

and Jon Brookes worked in the finance department.

I mean, between you, you worked here for over 80 years, didn't you?

What does it feel like coming back to the mill now,

with its new lease of life?

-Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

-Yeah?

-The old memories get stirred and everything, yes.

-Yeah?

-Absolutely.

-It's quite moving.

-Yes.

When you've worked here for this length of time.

It wasn't just a building.

It was a mill, and it meant something.

People worked here for many years.

There was many, many people, worked here for 20, 30, 40, 50 years

and I think that says a lot.

And what were working conditions like here?

You know, in terms of camaraderie, and...?

It was a great place to work for.

The people and the atmosphere, yeah, it was great.

-I wouldn't have swapped it for anything!

-No?

There was a big social side as well.

I've got a lot of ex-colleagues who are friends.

And a lot of people met their future wives here.

Of course, cos a lot ladies working in the mill as well.

That's it, so...

'By the 1970s,

'65,000 people were working in the textile sector in Leicestershire,

'accounting for a fifth of all employment in the county.

'It was booming.'

Today, the HOME-SPUN textile industry is still CLOSE-KNIT

and generating over £500 million per year.

'Modern-day factories such as this one in the heart of the city

'employee 100 people, making everything

'from socks to T-shirts for major UK retailers.'

I love this. What's great is there's kernels of the great industry

that used to work out of Friars Mill.

Yeah, yeah. If you drive around Leicester,

there are so many old buildings,

old mills, that are converted into apartments, offices, restaurants.

And if you're new to the city, you wouldn't realise that

these buildings were actually built for another purpose.

Like many people, when I buy a shirt and I see the label, I assume,

almost, now that it's made overseas.

And that our manufacturing industry, not bespoke, I mean, like, good,

everyday garments, I thought we'd lost that, but obviously we haven't.

We've got an opportunity here.

We hope to grow this business.

If you look around the factory,

-there's a lot of empty machines, still.

-Yes.

-We could do with another 60, 70 skilled staff in the place.

-Yes.

We just want to grow. We just want to get the message out.

That, look, we're still here, and we're growing.

I'm a bit of a dab hand with the machine, you know, myself.

-Oh, right, yeah.

-I believe, with a bit of instruction,

I could perhaps knock up a pair of socks.

We could get you to make up a dress.

-Dress?

-Yeah, yeah, if you want.

It might be a bit wonky but, you know, from small acorns,

like the Leicester textile industry, great oak trees can grow.

'I want to know the skill behind today's seamstressing.

'Time to put my money where my mouth is.'

Slowly, slowly, slowly.

Ooh, you cut on.

I've got my builders' boots on.

We need a label as well.

-A label?

-Yeah, on back.

Right.

It's a bit of a Vivienne Westwood, this one is!

I think, stick to the design side of things.

-Leave it to the experts.

-Yeah.

'OK, it's definitely harder than it looks.'

Who's better at sewing, Mohini, men or women?

-Women.

-Why?

-Why?

Because she's...

quickly pick up and she understands that more than men.

-I don't know why.

-I can understand that.

Who's better at cooking, men or women?

-Cooking?

-Yeah.

-Women.

There's a lot of girl power going on here, isn't there?

'It's good to know that Leicester's textile industry is still thriving.

'Back on site, an essential part of the mill is being put back

'where it belongs.'

In its heyday, Friars Mill's most distinctive feature

was its chimneys. Now, that one on the pump house was all right

but the one on the mill, well, that was completely destroyed.

But now, it's been rebuilt.

'The original chimney sat above the mill's boiler room,

'funnelling the hot air out of the building.

'Today, this brand-new 24-metre high, zinc-clad structure

'will serve a similar purpose,

'albeit in a more advanced 21st-century way.

'To help secure the chimney in place I'm joining the Mayor of Leicester

'up on the roof with contracts manager Bob.'

Dave, very good to have you here. It really is.

This must be a wonderful, proud moment for both of you.

Amazing, it really is,

cos when you remember what this was like when it burnt down...

-Yes.

-..they thought it was lost...

-Yes.

..thought we could never get it back again.

And to see it now in this state,

and to be here today just to put the finishing touches to it

-is brilliant. It really is.

-And as the Mayor of Leicester,

this has been one of your primary projects, hasn't it?

Yeah, they said I was mad when we bought it.

It's nice to prove them wrong.

Absolutely. Well, the chimney's back.

It's really nice to be involved in this last piece in the puzzle,

-let's say.

-We've got one last bolt to go.

You've got the imperial spanner.

Yes, the ceremonial spanner!

The ceremonial spanner! Right!

Here we go.

I think that's just about got it tight.

At least the building seems finished now,

cos that chimney must have been familiar to residents of Leicester

-for centuries.

-Yeah, I think it was.

And when the chimney went and the roof was lost,

I think people thought the building was lost.

And I think now, to see it restored, is absolutely unbelievable.

A proud moment, and very handsome it looks, too.

But it's not just there to look pretty.

It's going to be used to ventilate the building.

The craftsmanship going into this restoration project

is second to none.

And the on-site plasterer is using an 18th-century method,

mixing goats' hair with lime mortar to insulate the windows.

This is the goats' hair.

I'll just add this to the mix, for the base-coat mix,

so it all ties together and it's less likely to separate.

200 years on and this age-old method still has its advantages.

If a wall is constructed with lime mortar in it,

the wall will breathe and allow moisture to come in and out of it.

So, not only does the lime mortar allow the building to breathe,

once dry, the new mortar will perfectly match the old.

During the restoration work on Friars Mill,

builders uncovered a large amount of Roman remains

and a team of highly skilled archaeologists

are now examining the find.

We exposed this bit of wall earlier

and we exposed this piece of flooring

and what we are now able to do is clean up right up to the wall

to show that what we are actually standing in is...

We are within a building.

The wall is in situ, it's not been moved, it's not been tampered,

it's not been broken up. So it's quite exciting.

It's a thrilling time for the team of archaeologists

working on the Friars Mill site.

So far, they've uncovered the base of a column

and the foundations of what was

probably an important Roman building.

Lead archaeologist Dr Richard Buckley explains the importance

of these Roman remains.

It may surprise a lot of people, but Leicester

is probably one of the most explored cities in England, archaeologically.

But this site's actually in an amazingly juicy part of Leicester

in terms of archaeology.

We're right next to the river

and we're just tucked inside the town defences.

Where we're standing now,

we've excavated this small area to reveal the remains

of a Roman building with mortar floors,

and, unusually for Leicester,

bits of stone wall still surviving above ground level.

The Romans were here for the best part of four centuries

and really helped Leicester prosper.

In fact, Leicester is positively riddled with Roman remains,

including this impressive structure,

which is less than half a mile from the mill.

We're standing in one of the hot rooms of the great baths complex

of Roman Leicester, known as the Jewry Wall Baths.

So it's called the caldarium - the hot room.

Now, the baths weren't just used to get clean.

They were very much a place for meeting people and doing business,

so we hear from Roman writers that they were very noisy places.

People talking, arguing.

There were also things like sausage sellers

and generally, business being contracted,

so very busy social places and a major part of Roman life.

And it didn't end there.

The Romans also liked a bit of a workout, as Laura Hadland explains.

There is evidence of a palaestra, or gymnasium

and this was one of the first areas that people would enter

when they visited the Roman bath site.

And this would have been all about keeping fit,

but rather than your weight machine and doing all those kind of fun

Zumba classes that we see today, it's more about sort of, wrestling.

Then you go on to your hot, warm and cold baths,

so it's very much like you're visiting a full leisure complex

with your Turkish baths and your recreation area

and your fitness classes,

so in many respects, what the Romans were doing here at Jewry Wall

in a very social way, has very real reflections in modern society today.

From Roman ruins to exciting restoration,

I've learned so much about Leicester's rich history.

One of the reasons Friars Mill became so successful

as a textile factory during the Industrial Revolution

was because it could use the water from the nearby River Soar

to create steam to power its machinery.

-Hello, Pete.

-Morning, Dave.

-Morning. Permission to board, skipper!

-Welcome aboard.

'Now, a group of eco-warriors from Leicester's Riverside Trust

'are on a mission to dredge out any rubbish

'and preserve the wonderful wildlife occupying the river.'

You know, Pete, it's funny.

You spend all the money restoring Friars Mill, but the river

is an integral part of the mill,

and we've got to keep that clean and up to scratch, too, haven't we?

It's really important, the river's the focal point of Leicester.

It's why Leicester's here.

Our role in that is to keep it clean,

to keep the litter out of the water.

We're in a city. The litter gets in there, it gets blown in,

it gets thrown in, and somebody's got to get it out.

So, that's what we do on the boats with volunteers.

It's a fact of life, isn't it,

that cities and towns grow up around rivers?

I mean, you wouldn't have London if it wasn't for the Thames, would you?

-Exactly.

-So, how clean is the river now?

It's really clean.

Sometimes, it looks dirty because there's bits of crisp packets,

bread bags, things like that on the water, but actually,

-the water quality's really good.

-Oh, right.

-And the wildlife?

-Fantastic for wildlife.

We've got all sorts of wildlife in Leicester.

The fish quality is good.

We have otters using the river.

-Otters?

-Yes, we've got otters in Leicester, yes.

Wow! That's a bit fancier than your urban fox, isn't it?

People don't expect that sort of wildlife,

but if the water quality's good...

They would have been here before the city

so why shouldn't they be here now?

So, what's the kind of maddest, most terrible thing

you've ever found in the river?

You name it, we've found it.

We've pulled out all sorts of things.

We've pulled out motorbikes, we've pulled out pushbikes.

We once found a wedding ring with an engagement ring

-tied together with hair.

-Oh, no!

You name it, we've found it.

Oops, there's one down here.

Spray paint.

Got it.

'It's a labour of love.'

That one's full.

I am disgusted by the fact,

I can't see why people throw stuff into the river.

It doesn't make sense.

'And there's no end to the weird and wonderful discoveries.'

What on Earth's that?

'Hang on a minute. Is it a bird, is it a plane?'

Oh, no, it's a dinosaur. It's a stegosaurus.

Of all the native wildlife in the river...

a cardboard dinosaur.

It could only be in Leicester, couldn't it?

I mean, it's really creative,

but the proper place for this is maybe in the house,

in the classroom,

but not in the river.

You know, Pete, it doesn't matter how old you get,

one of the great pleasures in life has to be feeding the swans,

doesn't it? Have you got any bread?

'I've been told by the skipper, Vicky, that we can't feed bread

'to swans, so I'm going to give them seeds.'

So that's it. No bread for swans.

Well, I've learned something today, apart from a bit of building.

And textiles. Come on.

HE WHISTLES I'm not having much luck, you know.

Don't tell Vicky, but I think they prefer a slice of white sliced.

Vicky, they don't like your grub! HE LAUGHS

It's too healthy for them!

'It's not just the river that's a haven for wildlife.

'Friars Mill is, too.

'During the restoration work on the site,

'the builders uncovered some furry squatters living in the roof.'

Helen O'Brien is an ecologist from the local council.

For all these buildings along here, the biggest concern is the bats.

-Right.

-The bats are a protected species in the UK and in Europe,

so we have to make sure that we do the right thing for those bats,

and protect them while we can.

Bats are highly protected, and by law,

if the architects hadn't come up with a solution,

the whole project could never have happened.

So we've got special bat tiles that have been put on the roof

so that they fit in with the building itself.

It doesn't detract from the beauty of the building.

So that's really important.

But the bats still have a home there.

The bats still have a home there.

They're very, very small tiles but the bats are very small as well,

so they can just fly along over the water and fly straight into their

special roost. It's like a des res that has been created for them.

Fantastic. Man and nature in perfect harmony.

Absolutely.

Under the bridge in front of us there,

sometimes on the shelf near the water,

you can see little piles of otter droppings all the way along there.

Is that otter poo, there?

So, otter poo.

That's indicative of the otter.

-What are you doing?!

-It's supposed to smell like freshly mown grass

or jasmine tea. So what do you think?

Ooh, yes, I think I've got a whiff of the countryside.

The river, the lake.

-The taste of Leicester.

-Do you think you could use it

in one of your recipes?

I might smell it, but I'm not going to eat it!

THEY LAUGH

-Thank you.

-Take care.

-The best of luck with the river.

-Bye.

-Goodbye, guys.

'I think it's fair to say I won't be using otter poo

'in any of my recipes.

'It's been a fascinating day and to literally top it off,

'I've been given the honour of putting a special feature back

'where it belongs.'

This little dome is a cupola. It belongs in the middle of the roof.

It's covered in lead, and the last one melted after the terrible fire

in 2013.

'The cupola is purely a decorative structure and is an exact replica

'of the old one, and this one has a weather vane.'

Here we go.

One of the things I've just realised,

you know because it's got the weather vane on the top?

We've got to get it facing the right way round, haven't we?

Or else we could completely and utterly

distress the folk of Leicester.

Their geography will be completely to cock for the next 200 years.

Right, I've got the rope, if that helps.

Up a bit.

Up a bit more, he says.

Up a bit, and across.

HE LAUGHS

Right, at the minute, it's very delicate,

actually getting the cupola into the hole, as it were,

cos there's two big brackets.

Hold on, I've got to look, cos I'm stopping it spinning.

How are we looking at that now?

Put it down, steady, yeah?

Pinching down nice and steady.

THEY CHEER

Thank you!

That's another change on the skyline of Leicester.

In just under a month,

Friars Mill will be open and ready to welcome its new occupants.

Thanks to fantastic restoration,

this historic building has been brought back to life.

'Helping to restore these historic buildings

'has been an amazing experience.'

I helped give the angel its home back.

I'd turn the chisel the other way round!

'I've met some incredible people...'

Hello, sir. Very pleased to meet you.

'..and now appreciate the hard work that goes into preserving

'our nation's heritage.'

Thanks to fantastic restoration,

this historic building has been brought back to life.