Episode 5 Return to Pembrokeshire Farm

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to be able to buy 70 acres of land just over there.

With that land came a farmhouse,

a semi-derelict wreck...

..which we completely restored.

Now we've moved on to two other buildings -

a 200-year-old water mill

and next to it, what used to be the miller's cottage.

Building work has been under way for 18 months.

It's summer. The cottage is basically finished.

Designed by my son George, the trainee architect,

he's decided to make the outside a startling traditional white,

which should at least help any low-flying aircraft.

It was originally an utter ruin,

used in its latter years as a sheep-shearing shed.

It's pretty much a complete new house.

It looks old because it's built old,

not as a fake, but constructed with traditional methods and materials.

It has a slate roof covered in lime plaster.

The windows are sash and painted wood. Even the tiny garden is walled in with hedge banks.

Inside, we've tried to respect the integrity of the site.

This was originally a miller's house, so we want nothing too fancy.

We've maintained rough lime plaster walls and slate floors

with spectacularly effective, sustainable under-floor heating.

Across the way, the mill...is not finished.

Both buildings were supposed to be ready in time for a celebratory festival we're holding in August.

The outside is on schedule,

but I've just been told that a recently laid, organic, lime screed base to the floor

will need a few months to fully harden.

We have a few weeks, so the mill will not be finished in time for the big event

to celebrate it being finished, though it is generally working.

This extension is a timber-framed shed

floated directly above the ruined remains of the old wheelhouse and encased in a shell of bronze.

Inspiration came from a Pembrokeshire staple - corrugated iron.

We wanted to use something very smooth

and contrasting with the rough nature of the existing building.

That ended up leading us in the direction of using a metal cladding

which was something we could get very flat and a new material.

Although there was the possibility of using something in zinc or a similar material,

that might have been a bit dead and a bit kind of standard

and maybe slightly too close to a kind of agricultural farm building.

We'd get something with a bit more luxury to it, so that started me thinking about using bronze

which goes down to a very dark, brownish tone and maybe a hint of the green coming through.

And that felt like it would be much more of a sympathetic colour

which would sit well in the landscape.

It's changed colour remarkably quickly.

I didn't think it'd go anything like that fast.

It's different from side to side, but it'll have variegated amounts of weather in different places,

so you can read on the surface of the building the effects of the weather.

It's weathered in very well and its scale is perfect.

'There was no need to make it look like a house

'and we certainly didn't want it to look twee, rustic, cottagey or fake.

'The mill was a hard-working, agricultural building and the brief was to match its rugged simplicity.'

The three of us come in here...

'But inside the extension, we need an extension of time.'

What happens here on this front here? What is that?

That's a good question. When we know what we're doing with this door

and what material the door is going to be, it'll suggest what we should do with that.

-I need a drawing for this door.

-Yeah.

-What light is up here?

-Just a downlighter in the ceiling.

Do you have a specific downlighter in mind?

No, not right now. I'll have to specify a light.

I notice you haven't got a notebook. Is Jill writing those down? Jill, could you make a note of that?

-That switch, what is it?

-We haven't got a decision on it.

-The first fix is there, ready to fill in...

-So we need the switch and socket cover things on there.

-Yes.

Both the mill and the cottage have had challenges of having the responsibility over it all

and having to be able to organise things, make decisions in time for stuff, to plan ahead a bit.

-The door hasn't been decided. Has the handle been decided?

-No.

Working out which product to use a lot of the time or what to put in somewhere and all that stuff...

-So we need to try and get these things here decided and here as soon as possible?

-Yes.

-Don't scowl at me!

-I didn't scowl. I just looked at you.

I'm just trying to indicate without vocalising it

the fact that the decisions on these things, unfortunately, have to come very quickly now.

I know, but...

You know, it's a learning process.

I think every build project that you do is going to teach you something about some part of it.

'The showman's wagon is the other restoration project in hand and it's a woodworking one.

'It was designed to make a temporary use of the disused farm buildings,

'but it's grown to take up nearly a year of intricate work

'from carpenter Dave Yarwood and his team.

'Dave uncovered and repaired the complicated original planking of the outer framework

'and inside preserved and renovated the 1940s interior.'

So we bought this some time ago.

-Yeah.

-When it was in a bit of a state.

But it didn't seem in so much of a state until we took the old...

-That was my fault. If we'd just done the roof up...

-I think, down the road, the front would've fell off.

-And the back would've fell out.

-OK.

Each little bit, the kitchen, the bathroom, the roof, a new end, matching it all in,

each little bit had its own little problem associated with it.

If we sum it up, it's taken you...

I think we've been on it five months solid time for about four guys on the go. Quite a long time, innit?

-It is, yeah.

-I know.

-And what is the damage then?

There'll be more damage than I originally said, I should think.

More work's been done than I originally thought.

-I seem to remember we sat down and we set an upper limit, didn't we?

-We said around 33, 5.

If we add that together to about sort of 45,000-plus, the cost of it,

we're talking about 60 grand, somewhere around there.

-Yeah, I suppose you are.

-Was it worth it for you?

Yeah, a cracking thing to do. I wouldn't mind doing another one.

-Really?

-Yeah.

-You've got the yen now.

-Well...

Yeah, it's been a nice thing to do because you can...

The right people on the job and bounce ideas off one another and you can get a good result out of it.

So, yeah, it's been good fun.

'The wagon is intended to provide an extra bed for some of the entertainers at the festival

'which will start...tomorrow.'

We're at the last stages now.

We've got Torch Theatre coming today

to kit the place out like a film premiere.

And we've got kids coming from The Point who are gonna do what we're doing at the moment - cleaning up.

HE LAUGHS

I need a new brush, please.

'At the mill, alas, the festival is now a bit of a distraction.

'The work can't stop, although everyone knows it won't be finished in time.'

In this side of it, it's mostly just finishing things.

We've got a wallpaper in here.

There's painting to do and there's this load of stuff in the middle that's the same kind of thing.

The bulk of the work is done now, so going a couple of weeks over on a project like this, it's not much.

It's better that we make sure that it's done properly.

I did intend to put people up who are coming down for our festival in the brand-new, finished mill.

However, rather sweetly, George is planning to stay in there, in the unfinished room tonight.

And he can ponder his creation while he tries to sleep

amongst the bare, unpainted walls

and the electricity wires sticking out of the plasterboard.

'The weekend ahead includes a play, a new film, readings and lectures,

'a traction engine and art displays in the potato barn.

'I have no idea how many might want to come,

'but the notion of the farm as a rural visitor attraction is at least 1,000 years old.

'Anne Eastham tells me that these fields sit on what was once an important pilgrim route.

'Pilgrims arrived at the nearby harbour from Ireland

'and their journey would've taken them right past our front door.'

-The Welsh Church, Christian Church predates the English Christian Church?

-Yes, definitely.

And St David came to Wales to establish the Christian Church?

St David was born in Pembrokeshire.

He was born at St Non's just outside St David's.

And of Welsh parentage.

And what date are we talking about?

-We're talking about the early 5th century.

-Right.

-So, a few hundred years after the Romans had left?

-Oh, yes.

The direct road goes across to that road and comes down...

'We're talking about a place of intense historical resonance.

'The road runs between two elevated Iron Age forts.

'Directly ahead of us are the fields of the farm.

'Two pilgrimages to St David's were the equivalent of one journey to Rome.

'And the pilgrims needed places to rest each night.'

But how fascinating that the pilgrim route came this way

because this is quite a narrow lane.

-We're on by no means a main road, but this was the main road for the pilgrims.

-It would've been, yes.

'In medieval times, the resting place was called a spital or hospice

'and one of them was situated in the hamlet next to the farm

'and was probably one of the farm's fields.'

So, Anne, where do you think the spital field was here?

Well, I think, if folk memory is to be believed, that it was where the graveyard is now,

where the farmer was giving the field to the chapel,

but at that time, this field was labelled "Spite".

And so he went down the pub that night and some local wag said to him,

"Do you really think it's such a good idea

"to give a field to a chapel that's called 'Spite'?"

He said, "Oh, no, I've just changed the name. It's now 'Harmony'." And "Harmony" it's remained.

'Tomorrow, modern-day pilgrims will make their way to the farm for two days of music,

'theatre and nosing about in buildings in aid of charity.'

# Radio Pembrokeshire! #

'If you are looking for something to do this weekend, why not make your way to the Griff Rhys Jones Open Day?

'This is 102.5, Radio Pembrokeshire.'

-Ready to go then.

-OK, are you guys ready?

'And we're off. We have to get the showman's wagon out of the potato barn, so that people can see it

'and so that the barn can be turned into our impromptu breeze block theatre and art gallery.'

It's half three at the moment, so it kicks off in about an hour and a half or so.

Everyone's gonna start arriving.

And the stage is still getting worked on, we're not quite fitting all of our seats in.

-We can't quite fit the art in.

-'Paul, come in?'

A possibility would be using one of these scaffolding towers

and if there are any bits of wood which can be tacked on to it, you could hang pictures on that.

That would be the easiest thing, but we have to get on with it.

'We're raising money for the local youth drop-in centre.

'Local youth drops in to help.'

'I'm not sure why I even bother to try and get them to hurry up.

'The longest queue is to see the unfinished plaster and wires sticking out of the wall.'

FOLK MUSIC

Yeah, to see the whole thing

coming up from a pile of stones, basically,

into a great cottage...

fantastic cottage, that's been the high point for me.

As kids, my sister and I, we used to walk down here all the time.

I remember these buildings being this way, just exactly like this.

That would have been in 19... early '60s probably.

I get very nostalgic about Pembrokeshire. I grew up here.

I come back every year because...

I live in Los Angeles where it's constant change and it's shifting sands.

And here, this feeling of permanence and my roots are literally in this land around here.

It's just very reassuring to know that it can be continued.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I think it's been a success. It's been a lot of hard work.

We've got loads of people here. They have been coming regularly all day.

I think we came out on top and, hopefully, we make a lot of money.

The story begins 212...

HORN TOOTS

The weekend raised about 11,000 for charity.

But we still have the mill to finish. We can get back to waiting for paint to dry.

Between the old mill building and the new bronze extension is a gap

where the mill wheel once turned.

It's the wheel pit.

George has kept it open and stuck a platform over it.

So this has all gone in. It looks fairly solid.

There's a little bit of a wobble in the handrail at the minute.

I think the whole thing needs to shift back about a foot and that'll sort that out.

There's a new mezzanine level inside the mill like a big shelf,

providing an upper sleeping area.

It's a traditional sleeping platform known in Pembrokeshire as a crog loft.

But George can't decide on the exact finished look, so he's going to see what other people have done.

In here you can see that we had to replace the roof completely.

We've kept the position, style and form of the old trusses,

but the original ones were shot to bits, so these three trusses had to be replaced.

You've kept the space in here really and that's working really nicely, that kind of openness.

You get a feel for the size of the building.

Yeah, this whole thing of the mezzanine, the platform in the space

is something that's very salient in our mill

because it's got this height that's just kind of enough

to put something like that in there

and get that bit of extra space

and that kind of added layer of interest in the room.

And the way they've done it, there's something quite interesting

about this quite dramatic lean in it as well towards you

which is something you don't really often see, I think.

It's a very traditional approach. The ladder as well, I quite like.

They're lovely floorboards.

There's something really nice about an older bit of wood and the kind of character it gets.

This project isn't only about restoring buildings.

It's about a farm.

We've been creating a trail alongside the stream

to give public access to the 70 acres of countryside.

I've just walked the entire length of our new nature walk.

We've planted about a thousand trees

which means in, well, 60, 70 years' time,

we'll be able to call it "the woodland walk".

It's not so much how much the pathway changes when we walk it,

but it's how much we change, I think,

as we walk the pathways through different generations.

We can walk the same path a dozen times over the decades and feel differently on every occasion,

but the very nature of the path may stay the same.

Inside the mill, the floor is finally drying out.

It's a breathable, lime-based sub-strata and now solid enough for us to continue work.

Up in the crog loft, George has decided on a simple, spare look -

heavy cross beams and some reclaimed oak floorboards left over from the original farmhouse restoration.

The wooden staircase up to the crog loft is a freestanding unit -

fiddly to design and difficult to make.

There's no fixings, there's no screws or nails

showing from the top of the stairs.

What we've had to do is we've had to use a cleat system,

so the timber is held down on to the actual carriages

and this allows the timber to expand and contract and do its own thing without it cracking.

Because the wall is a natural stone wall,

we couldn't put a staircase straight to it, there'd be gaps, etcetera.

George has kept it back about 50 mil off the wall

to form a shadow gap, so the stairs have a groove running round the edge.

And I believe there's gonna be some inset lighting, mood lighting that's gonna be set inside there.

George continues to make bold colour statements.

I didn't think it would be a good idea to use a particularly strong colour, nor to paint it white.

It needs to be something quite neutral.

Personally, I think it's a bit of a fallacy to think that white is a neutral ground

because it actually is a very strong statement in itself,

so I've decided instead to go for a grey.

This is a lot darker than it's gonna come out because it's still wet,

but it's just to bring it in a little bit, make it softer

and to bring out some of the colour in the timber on the crog loft.

There are safety issues in the crog loft because the building is a conversion.

It's subject to stringent building regulations. The balustrade has to support a small crowd

and has to be difficult for small feet and small heads.

Steel mesh and timber are in keeping with the industrial nature of the building.

At the moment, we are dredging out the wheel pit,

but in the process, we're finding all sorts of old stuff that's been in there.

No treasure, unfortunately. No suspicious bones.

This is obviously a really important part of the building

and most probably was the first part of the building to be built.

They would have got the water supply in, dug the pit and had the leat running the water away.

They would have had to get that right before they decided to build the mill around it.

There are two elements to the mill floor -

the lime screed sub-strata and the surface finish to go on top of that.

As a final flourish, George has gone continental.

He has specified a hand-made, traditional Italian finish called marmorino.

It comes complete with its own Italian floor-layer.

Marmorino they used in Venice in the 16th century

because they used the terracotta and the lime to make walls, then they started to apply on the floor,

but on the floor they had to get a stronger material.

Lime is added with marble powders,

so it's just marble and lime.

Lime comes from stone, from marble,

and when it's dry, it becomes hard

and, in a sense, it becomes like the original stone.

When you have too much moisture in the environment,

marmorino absorbs this moisture

and when the environment becomes dry, it leads the water to the environment.

So that is nice because it balances the humidity of the house.

In fact, George has totally embraced the hand-crafted ethos.

Even the wallpaper is hand-printed.

It's the first time I've hung hand-printed paper and it is a completely different kettle of fish.

It's more by eye. It's fine when you stand back and look at it,

but if you go up close, you can see the difference in the paint thickness in some places

and some patterns are longer than on other pieces, so it's quite hard.

It looks OK. Just the fiddly bits round the windows and job done.

-Let's go with this one over here.

-George, it matches!

-What, the grey of the room?

-Yes, it's fantastic. You're going to be able to achieve a total greyness.

-I hope we don't have any accountants coming to stay.

-Don't worry.

They won't be able to find each other in the room!

Since the age of 12, George has been able to lay a patronising hand upon my shoulder

and say, "Don't worry about it, old man," in that sort of tone.

And so he's well used to sort of calming down his prima-donna father.

I'm well used to putting up with his extraordinary impertinence.

Why do you have to be difficult about it?

What's been great is I can't think of a better way of bonding together.

And that's something which middle-aged people, elderly people like me, like.

We like to see our children. The children don't want to see us. It's just one of the facts of life.

Whoa...

It's like waiting for a smoke signal from the Pope, waiting to know that we have had success

with the sofas and then the rest of the stuff can come in.

The walls look a little blotchy because they'll need another few months to dry out properly,

but effectively, we've finished.

I was a doubter, but I think things like the mesh netting is a nice, modern touch.

The knotty plywood works very well.

It looks like an original design touch, it looks like all your own signature. It's great.

I think the floor, even though it was the most expensive floor ever made in the history of mankind,

from Italy is really good.

I think the grey is quite soothing, if quite prison-like.

I just think that the crog loft should be at this end.

I think it actually...

-I like to think that my point has been proved.

-I'm only joking!

Both buildings have been completed in the space of about two years.

They were both conversions or restorations,

rather than acts of preservation.

Both will now have to face the onslaught of weather to come

which will knock off some of their virginal whiteness in fairly short order,

so they will blend more conventionally into the countryside around them.

So not too painful then, really, in the end?

No, I guess not.

It took a little while.

Yes, there were a few delays along the way, a few arguments, but I think we're all right.

I'm glad that you seem to have gotten over your tyrannical desire to control everything.

I haven't. I never had a tyrannical desire.

-I just had a tyrannical desire to have the thing looking good.

-Yeah.

What was that?

It looks great today. It always looks great.

It always looks slightly different

as if the whole landscape has been given a new colour wash by the season.

What I'm looking at is a dispersed community,

a landscape which has got these punctuation marks throughout it and they are these farmsteads.

Some of those farmsteads no longer sustain an agricultural community

and the buildings are in danger of losing their purpose.

I suppose what we've tried to do

is give a few buildings a new history,

a new lease of life, give them another 200 years.

And if that's what we've achieved,

then that's something to be proud of.

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