Episode 3 Britain's Empty Homes Revisited

Over the years, Britain's Empty Homes has been on a mission to show

what can be down to revitalise and transform

some of the UK's estimated one million empty properties.

Here I find you, ankle deep in snow!

In this series, I'll be catching up with some of the people who took the plunge,

and staked everything on turning unloved houses

into bespoke family homes.

Today I'll be catching up with a lady from an earlier series,

who bought a slice of country life in the Cotswolds,

and I'll be seeing how she's getting on.

That is amazing! It's beautiful and you've kept all the original features!

And we'll see how the project to restore Britain's oldest concrete home is going.

It's wonderful that we can celebrate a piece of high technology from 1871.

We'll also be visiting some of the derelict dwellings

our property detectives have been working hard to save.

-You've made a great start here, haven't you?

-Yeah.

13 months ago, I came to meet Camilla Hanchett at her chocolate box cottage in the Cotswolds.

Camilla had been looking for a new village to call home

and a new property to match. She promptly fell in love with this thatched cottage

which had be lying empty for some time.

Can I go in?

Camilla became the proud owner of the 300 year old building following a turbulent period in her life.

I had what you could call a life-changing accident.

I slipped and fell, broke my right arm, upper arm into four pieces.

I was also burgled twice in the house that I lived in.

And then I had a car crash.

So I thought, "I'm going to do something completely different."

I remember saying to my colleagues, "I fancy moving somewhere beautiful."

After 25 years of living in Berkshire, Camilla decided to move closer to some of her family

who lived in the picturesque village of Churchill, in the Cotswolds.

I've taken on a cottage that I felt very much, when I saw it, needed some love, some TLC.

Camilla paid £215,000 for the empty property, which needed major modernisation.

With help from her brother, David, Camilla rolled up her sleeves

and prepared to turn the cottage into the dream home where she could start her new life.

I want to restore it and make it beautiful again.

When I first met up with Camilla, I was keen to hear about her plans for this exciting new project.

-Hello there, I'm Joe.

-Hi, I'm Camilla.

-Camilla, nice to meet you.

My brother David.

-Hi.

-Hello, David, how are you? It's a beautiful place.

What do you know about it? How long has it been empty?

I believe it has been empty for about three years

and nothing had been done to it for a very long time either.

-It's Grade II listed.

-Intriguing.

About 300 years old and it had just been neglected for a long time.

What was your reaction when you found out your sister had bought this?

Pretty brave, to be honest.

It's not something I'm sure I'm ready to do, but fantastic.

Well, let's find out just how brave, shall we,

and pop inside and explore?

Wow, look at this.

The builders had started work on the property three weeks earlier, gutting and stripping the inside,

which left Camilla to figure out just how she could renovate and preserve this beautiful cottage.

-This will be the sitting room.

-So you come straight into the sitting room.

What will you do with the walls, are you going to plaster?

We'll have all the inside of the inglenook exposed and the rest of the walls will be plastered.

-That is great. You've really got a lovely feature here to work with. And it's stunning, isn't it?

-Yes.

-It is the sort of focal point of the room.

-It's quirky and I like it.

It's got some interesting little features.

There's a little seat in there which the builder only uncovered last week.

-Possibly somewhere the homeowner would have sat to keep warm in the winter.

-To keep warm.

-It's a lovely idea, isn't it, going back 300 years?

-Yeah.

-Mmm.

And then there's this little cupboard which, I've been told,

would have been used to store salt.

-Salt?

-To keep it dry.

David, you saw this property when Camilla first bought it,

how's it looking, you know, because of the changes?

It's incredible. It's a complete transformation, it feels a lot bigger, a lot roomier.

-I know Camilla will make it into a beautiful home.

-Yeah.

Next door to the living room was a small dining area,

leading into the kitchen, which Camilla has stripped back

to the original stonework and planned to turn into a modern country kitchen.

Upstairs, she intended to keep the layout the same with two bedrooms to the left of the property

and a sizeable bathroom to the right.

This is going to be the bathroom.

There's some great head height in there, that's very nice.

I know, I love that high ceiling.

-So presumably this is going to be your bedroom?

-It is, yes.

It almost feels like the bottom of a boat, dare I say?

So what is going on here?

Well, I've been told by the neighbours,

about 25 years ago whoever owned the house decided to make it open plan downstairs

and took out this main supporting wall.

The roof then started to dip, like so,

and they very quickly had to reinstate a wall which they've done.

It's block work wall, right the way up.

You can see it goes up into the roof space.

So it did move but I've had a structural engineer sign it off. It's all OK.

It's stopped moving now.

I love all this bowing and this quirkiness.

It's all fine now.

That's the point with empty properties. You do have a chance to strip it right back.

This is the first time you have taken on a renovation like this,

what are your fears, what are the big challenges that come with this?

Dealing with the fact it's a listed building, although I don't want to modernise it too much.

I want it to be in keeping with the style of the property.

Do you know where you go with that?

Do you know what sort of style you aim for?

I'm uncertain, I've got a rough idea.

Standing out here it just looks beautiful, doesn't it? The stone is great

But the thatch, what a striking feature of the house.

-Is it the first time you've lived in a thatched cottage?

-Yes, it is.

I'm looking forward to it.

Later we'll see what happened when I took Camilla to meet Lynn and Dean,

who had taken on a renovation project of a 200-year-old

thatched cottage very similar to Camilla's.

It is making me feel quite excited again,

it is such a shell at the moment.

Across Britain there are many buildings like Camilla's

just waiting to be discovered and renovated.

In every part of the country,

there is a team of empty property officers whose job it is to

spot these buildings and get people living in them again.

Birmingham empty property officer Matthew Smith leads a team

handling more than 2,000 cases.

When we caught up with him just over three years ago

he was on his way to a house that he had been dealing with for some time.

It is a really sad tale, this one,

the owner, who has been living in the property until the last

two or three months, has now been taken into residential care.

You will see from the look of the property that it is as bad as it gets, basically.

The owner was an elderly man who had struggled to care for the property.

It had been subject to break-ins and vandalism and the police

have called Matthew in to make sure that the house is secure.

You can see from the window frames, they are as rotten as rotten can be.

Broken glazing up top, curtains, basically the whole house is falling to pieces.

Matthew was concerned, not just for the state of this place,

but for the knock-on effect it would have on the whole street.

Properties like this will always devalue the whole neighbourhood,

although it is a very sensitive case,

in reality it is still lowering the cost of the neighbouring properties.

It may devalue them by 20%.

The house was open at the back

so Matthew needed to stop any further damage occurring.

The property always runs the risk of being set on fire,

antisocial behaviour, people breaking in, drug taking, all sorts of goings on.

Local builders were called in to make the house secure.

They had a quick look inside and then,

certain that no one was there, the building team boarded up the house.

Over the coming months the property will be placed in the hands of

a solicitor who will put the property up for sale.

At the end of the sad tale, hopefully there is a silver lining,

the owner is in residential care now being looked after.

From the neighbour's point of view the property will be sold,

repaired and done up and hopefully they will not have to live next door

to such a problematic property from now on.

Today, over three years later, Matthew is back to see

the property and find out if it has changed for the better.

It was only sold two months ago

but the renovation is already well under way.

Matthew Smith, Birmingham City Council, nice to see you.

The new owner, Amjad Ali, was keen to start the work as soon as possible.

-I'm sure the neighbours are happy already, aren't they?

-I hope so.

There is a tree gone, last time I was here there was a tree there.

The first thing he did was to chop down the huge branches that

-overshadowed the building.

-You have made a good start on the windows.

Yeah.

Double glazing. The last time I was here the woodwork was falling out.

I remember pressing the windows and it was coming away in my hands.

-Good, sturdy door, yeah. And again, the door was actually falling down. Can we have a look inside?

-Yes.

After you.

You have made a difference in here. The walls are looking good.

It is so much lighter than before, with that tree outside it was

all dark when I was in here three years ago. Put new floorboards down, as well.

Do you want to show me upstairs?

The structural work is well underway, there is a new roof,

the house is being rewired and all the walls have been replastered.

-It looks better than since I was last here. Are you pleased?

-Yeah.

Thanks for showing me around. Cheers.

It has been a fabulous meeting with the owner, half hour,

it is superb to see the property now finally being restored

into its former glory.

The neighbours will be happy, Birmingham City Council is already happy, the house looks superb

so I will move onto the next one.

Seeing the houses seems to have put a spring in Matthew's step,

it is a derelict wreck, but potentially a comfortable family home.

Transforming an empty property has its rewards

but it is never going to be easy.

However, when you speak to people who have been through it, they will tell you that the hard work,

the stress, the sacrifices are all worth it in the end.

Three years ago, Michael Cullinane and his family decided to take on

one half of a former prep school in Dorchester.

They certainly needed plenty of vision.

The main thing about the property that really appealed to us

was the size. From the road looking at it, it was four storeys,

so the sheer scale of the property really appealed to us.

The family spent almost two years working on this large end-of-terrace

house and now have a four-bedroom, three bathroom family home with a vast 70 metre rear garden.

When we first walked into this house it was vacant for two years

so it was incredibly damp, there was water running down the walls.

Without us getting it at the price we did and doing the work ourselves

it was impossible for us to afford such a thing.

They renovated one room at a time

with the whole family getting involved.

We bought the property for £265,000 and so far, to date,

we have spent between 85 and £90,000 doing it up.

As an estimate, it is probably worth about £500,000 at the moment.

By taking on this abandoned old school Michael and his family have

ended up with a home they simply couldn't have otherwise afforded.

One of my favourite bits in the house is the hallway floor, that leads nicely to the original staircase,

the original staircase is just stunning.

Also we have always wanted a kitchen diner and when we have parties

and dinner parties everyone is in the kitchen, it is the hub of the house, really.

This house has improved our family life completely,

it has given us the room to expand so I can see us being here,

forever really, it is a bit of a forever house.

Earlier in the programme I met novice renovator Camilla who had spent

£215,000 on a Grade II listed thatched cottage.

She has taken on a mammoth task

and had big plans to modernise the whole site.

So I took Camilla and her brother, David, to meet a couple who had undertaken a very similar project.

Lynn and her builder husband Dean bought a three-bedroom thatched cottage in Oxfordshire

that had stood empty for two years.

It was a one up, one down cottage,

an old traditional cottage with an old washroom at the back, no bathroom.

I was bowled over by it.

Despite the amount of work the building required to make it habitable,

Lynn and Dean were determined to fulfil its potential.

We've tried to keep the property as traditional as possible

and the way we've done that is by sourcing local materials.

We just tried to be sympathetic to the cottage.

Guys, thank you for having us in the cottage. The first thing I'm struck by is the similarity, actually,

as we walk straight in here to a really cosy room, exactly like you have.

Here we have a wood-burning stove. Was this always here, or something that you had to put in?

Actually, that wall was plastered up.

We decided that we'd just put a little French stove sticking out into the main room

and then you drilled a hole through the wall, didn't you?

-Yeah.

-And said, "Have a look in there."

It's exciting when you uncover things like that.

Yeah, definitely but that's what these places are all about, I think.

How tricky is it putting this in

and having an active chimney when you've got a thatched roof?

Basically, you have to have the chimney lined

and, on top of the chimney pot,

you have to have what's called a spark arrester.

Once the fire is on, it's great, yeah.

Is this how you picture it, in terms of the snugness of your room?

-It's so similar to mine.

-Is it?

-Yes.

It's making me feel quite excited again,

it's such a shell at the moment.

Yeah.

Lynn and Dean paid £295,000 for their cottage

and spent £50,000 on renovations, adding underfloor heating,

opened up the kitchen, to make room for an Aga,

and turned the extension into their main living space.

Upstairs featured three bedrooms and two bathrooms

that have been lovingly restored to make the most of the period features.

Oh, that's lovely.

Instantly the exposed stone catches your eye.

Is that something that you would consider, Camilla?

Definitely, I'm really liking this mixture of exposed stone and plaster.

Yeah. Really nice on an end wall.

How is it to actually be in here, does it cause any problems?

It's lovely, but it does get very dusty.

So you have to Hoover the wall?

Outside, Lynn and Dean have nurtured a picturesque garden

which is complemented by the rustic thatched roof.

These type of roofs need regular care and upkeep

and, having lived in the cottage for some time,

they understand exactly what the maintenance involves.

Well, this is great, I have to say.

I love it out here and, for the first time,

we can really clearly see the roof. Let's start there,

have you had to do any work to the thatch since you moved in?

About six months ago we had the ridge redone.

The ridge gets the main part of the rain.

So that ridge will stop it seeping into the top

which is going to be the most vulnerable part of the roof.

Of course, with thatch you don't have gutters, or any of that rigmarole.

The water what, just drips off?

Yes, it just literally pours off the roof.

So you have to definitely have a good bit of drainage, on the ground, so that it runs away.

As well as renovating the cottage, Lynn and Dean have also converted their outhouse,

joining it to the main building with a conservatory,

an alteration which Camilla hoped to undertake at her property.

It's nicely linked up, your downstairs area here, and, Camilla,

if planning permission could be granted,

it's something you could consider to link up your outside

with a conservatory or a glass corridor.

The man who lives next door said that he had an idea of putting glass between the two

so you could link them with the conservatory definitely, like this.

Yeah. Very good.

Is there a certain amount of satisfaction, bringing something back to life,

something that wasn't used and can be used again in the future?

Yeah, definitely, you've saved a little part of history, really.

It's like having an antique, isn't it, you've got to look after?

Yeah, definitely.

Later on, I will be catching up with Camilla to see

if this visit helped her with her vision for her own thatched cottage.

Over a year ago I went to see a project to save

and restore Britain's oldest standing concrete building,

dating back to the 1870s in Southwark, London.

Concrete House was built in one of South London's most desirable

residential areas, but the iconic 100-year-old building had

become completely derelict and had been the focus of a long campaign

by local empty property officers to bring it back to its former glory.

It was built by the architect Charles Drake,

the era's most enthusiastic promoter of a revolutionary,

and back then, expensive building material, concrete.

The fascinating restoration project was being overseen

by architect Paul Latham.

Hello, Paul, how's it going?

-Hello, very good thanks.

-Good to see you.

First of all, it has been years, hasn't it,

-to get inside this.

-13 years.

13 years of campaigning and dedication,

but I have got to see inside now that we are allowed in. After you.

-Wow! There is no ceiling and no floors.

-Exactly.

-It is a total wreck, isn't it?

-It's amazing.

I know there are no floors here, can we go upstairs?

We can go upstairs, yes.

When fully renovated the building was intended to be put to good use as affordable housing.

We have one flat down there, one flat here,

the same on the other side and the top floor will be the fifth up there.

Exactly.

The material you are celebrating is concrete but it's also, I assume, the bane of your life.

That is why it is such a difficult project and that is why it will cost so much money.

Indeed, it is why the building is still surviving,

because a brick building without the floors would have collapsed.

This is special because of the unique stage in the development

of the material of concrete.

This is using steel plates as the first system,

now we build tower blocks with this same system

so it is a very important building from that point of view.

Part of the project is that from the outside it will look absolutely

correct that it would have done in 1873 when Drake finished this

building which, incidentally, took no more than 10 days to build.

-10 days! That is phenomenal.

-Exactly.

In Victorian times it took much longer to build a typical

house made of bricks, but the architect Charles Drake

had a dream of building housing quickly by using concrete.

But his plans had one central flaw.

Unfortunately he did not understand the small detail that is

you need reinforcing rods otherwise the building is not strong enough.

To conclude, this is going to be a project that will provide

affordable housing but so much more, it is an homage to Drake

the first constructor in concrete,

who pioneered many of the principles we still build by today.

Absolutely, yes. That is a very fair comment.

Today, one year later,

Paul Latham is back to check on how the renovation is coming along.

We have done 90% of the underpinning,

the building is safe. We can concentrate on the internal.

It has been a painstaking process

but they have managed to save most of the original fabric.

Here we have some of the original pieces of the building that we

have dug up, we are pinning them

back on to the building in the same position that they were originally.

Where we are missing some of the parts we have got some

craftsmen to actually create new mouldings to match.

It is quite skilled work and it has taken us six months to get this far.

I think Mr Drake could be horrified. I don't think he would be too impressed.

Inside, Paul's designs are slowly coming to life,

there are many challenges to deal with before the work could even begin.

It has come quite close to being demolished

and it has come very close to falling down.

We had big mature trees around it and the roots had gone under the building.

There were major cracks so as well as underpinning the building

we have had to put metal stitches to tie across the cracks

like sticking plaster to make the building stable.

The floors had all gone, the roof had nearly gone so we really have

just grabbed it in the nick of time to save it from being lost forever.

This Grade II listed building will soon become

home to five housing association flats.

It is wonderful that we can celebrate a piece of high technology

from 1871 and also deliver affordable homes for people to live in.

Mr Drake would be very pleased to see it coming

back into use as houses, he would really like that.

13 months ago I met Camilla Hanchett

at her 300-year-old cottage in the Cotswolds.

She was hoping to turn the empty house into a comfortable home

whilst retaining its original period features.

I have come back to Churchill in the Cotswolds to see how Camilla

has been getting on.

The last time I saw this cottage it was just a shell

but now, standing here from the outside, it looks picture perfect.

There is even smoke coming from the chimney.

It looks like the fire is lit, I better go and say hello.

Camilla wanted to give this pretty cottage a complete facelift

without losing any of the character.

Potentially a rather tricky balancing act.

-Camilla, good to see you. How are you?

-You too, very well, how are you?

Very well. This looks incredible. Just a bit different, isn't it?

-Slightly, yes.

-It looks so neat and clean and beautiful.

-Can I have a look inside?

-You can, come in.

Hey, look at this. That is amazing.

It is beautiful,

and you have really kept all of the original features, haven't you?

Yes, I think the beams were black when you last saw this.

We shot-blasted all the way through, all the beams including this one.

So you get this lovely very, sort of quite light wood traditional feel.

I love the colour of them. It goes well with the stone which

I have also had shot blasted in this area here because behind the

wood burner was all black and sooted up from many years of an open fire.

I don't think there was a floor in last time and you have gone for flagstones, which look brilliant.

I have replaced what was here.

The colour is crucial here, because everything you have done

has kept it a very warm feeling

because of the colour of the wood and flagstones and the stone.

How difficult has that balance been? Before you were talking about modernising in that you want to live

in a modern home and not the 300-year-old cold

draughty home, but you also wanted to keep that traditional feel.

We have kept the original features but I have put in a new kitchen,

new bathroom, central heating, it has been rewired, replumbed.

-Wow, the whole works.

-But I haven't actually changed the character of it.

-Yeah.

You decided not to keep too much stone on show,

because you make this a real feature by just having the stone revealed here.

That's right, and there is also some stone in there but that is new Cotswold stone,

the back of the fireplace is original but the front was a bit damaged.

This had been empty for three years as you remember.

-No one had touched it for years anyway.

-It works so well.

Shall we see some more?

Yes, of course, follow me.

Now I remember this ceiling, and what a great bedroom!

This has worked out really well, it's so hard to visualise this,

when you are just dealing with rafters and stripped back walls.

-It's pretty much what I had in my head, I haven't done a huge amount in here apart from decorating.

-Yeah?

It's really good. I do like this, I know it wasn't originally supposed to be like that

hundreds of years ago, but things move and wood bends and bows

and I think it gives it really good character, doesn't it?

It is, I love the character.

-Shall we go outside? We can go and see what's happened, shall we?

-Yes.

It's a really nice sized garden, isn't it? And it's turned out so well!

It looks absolutely fantastic. you come out and you think, "This is the garden and that's the garden wall."

But it's not, that's a sort of false fence, that's not on your boundary, is it?

No, the boundary is just beyond so that is a gravel path and the fence is there to disguise the oil tank.

-And the bins.

-Clever.

-I have also got an external boiler, which is in that cupboard there.

-Oh, OK.

And the thatched roof, it's the first time you've lived in a thatched cottage,

-has it caused any problems?

-No. Not at all.

It's like having a duvet over the top of the house. It's very cosy and when it rains you don't hear the rain.

-It just drops off the edge.

-The building is just looking glorious.

So, I'm so pleased it's worked out so well and you've got planning permission

to develop the rest of it whenever you want,

-congratulations!

-Thank you.

-Job well done!

Hasn't it worked out well?

It is not always simple to balance the needs of a modern home with a traditional

look at feel, and yet, Camilla here has made it look easy.

And to think this place was abandoned for three years,

it just goes to show how things can be turned around.

And now, Camilla has her perfect home.

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