Lets talk about Grand Designs last night. Who wants to live in a castle?

[sassy]

How mad was the bloke? How tolerant was his wife?
But that HOUSE! (swoon)

the wife was very calm and tolerant ! and having to put up wiv stress of the build no wonder she was at the wine ! who can blame her !

Dh and I spend the whole programme chortling at Kevvo and the Voice of Doom, and saying things like, 'Now I'm just going into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I hope to be back in five minutes, but if I were to accidentally touch a live wire with wet hands it is entirely possible I could simply be electrocuted to death, which would delay the tea, or maybe the tea would never actually be made at all..."

Name drop alert... I was involved in this case (not saying how though)

OMG Songbird - another archaeologist on Mumsnet! (and no, I wasn't the archaeologist on the programme )

I enjoyed the show a real labour of love for him but such an uninspiring interior

I fell asleep half way through (just after I cried when the wall fell down)

Do you think he would be the right Architect for my nursery (esp if he can get low prices)

My dh is insisting that we cancel our English Heritage membership since watching this - couldn't believe the hoops they made them jump through - not to mention charging them £20k for archeology - EH should pay for that.

What an interesting project, and a fantastic result. Even though it was over budget (when isn't it?) I'm sure they've made a packet if they ever needed to sell it.

Would love to live somewhere like that. Those views...

Why should EH pay for it? Where would the money come from? Would you be happy for your taxpayers money to be spent to enable this couple to buy a derelict place, do it up and potentially make a packet? There are grants available from EH but they come with strings attached, like allowing some degree of public access for example. That's fair enough I think.

EH didn't lease it to them, it sold it to them. Surely after EH has taken the money, that should be it.

They should pay for the archaology and I agree with it. The blooming building was going to disappear if he didn't work on it, yet they kept treating him as if he was doing something disreputable. I think he was very clever to use the programme to force EH to behave in a half-way sensible fashion.

And why on earth, as a member of EH and therefore supposedly interested in heritage issues, would your DH take this view? If the money hadn't been spent on the archaeology, then important parts of the historic fabric could well have been lost. That wall that fell down would have been lost without record, for example. I can't understand the mentality of anyone who would want to save a nationally important structure, but in the process risk losing the very aspects of it that make it nationally important.

EH DID NOT SELL THEM THE CASTLE! At least I'm 99.9% sure they didn't, but I'll check. Scheduled ancient monuments are not owned by EH.

I think he had an INCREDIBLY easy ride from EH! They gave him planning in about 6 months, and when the wall fell down and he had to reply they gave him planning in a week! And they let him do that roof.
My BIL spent almost THREE YEARS trying to get EH to agree to planning on a falling down georgian pile he bought. Except unluckily for him it turned out to be bloody Tudor underneath. Cue much toothsucking from EH who couldn't decide whether he should restore it back to the Georgian, or back to the Tudor, and if so how, etc etc etc.

He spent several hundred thousand on planning consultants, architects, archeologists before he even got on site.

I can see it both ways

They shouldn't profit from our taxes
The people shouldn't have to pay extrotionate amount to convert the building

As EH had done nothing about it while they owned it either by archiology or to preserve it

They shouldn't have required the new owners to do something they weren't prepared to/couldn't afford to

Oh God, I'll have to leave this thread soon - I get enough of this at work. The archaeological work had to be done to inform the decision on the scheduled monument consent, to enable a full and proper understanding of the building and its archaeology so that the works could be carried out in the most sympathetic way possible. And it is an established principle that the polluter pays - in planning terms that means the developer. There is no public money available for such work.

Agree he should pay for his own archaeology. He has spent £600,000 on a house that has to be worth at least £1.2. WHat exactly is he complaining about?! And why should the taxpayer subsidise it?

Agree with Simon whatsit from EH when he said "If you buy a derelict ancient monument, and then decide you want to turn it back into a dwelling, and don't realise it is going to be extremely expensive, then you are a madman".

All of us who own listed/old/important buildings know we have to pile cash into them to keep them standing - with not much in the way of grants around - that is part of the whole "custodian for future generations" bollox you take on with a house like that.

Don't go Twinkle, I'm on your side!

If it had fallen down & no archiology had been done would that be a better outcome than the nice people changing it and living in it without doing the archiology?

English Heritage didn't own it, they are merely the regulators (probably not quite the right term but along those lines).

katymac you are missing the point.
no falling down would not be better, that is why he was given permission to do it.
yes you need to know what you are dealing with and how best to restore it which is why you need the archaeology.
it is a cost associated with the build, like putting in loos and insulation and electrics.
taxpayer shouldn't pay!

But he saved the building. The thing I found most astonishing about the programme was how how quickly an apparently sturdy building can disappear. Britain is losing old buildings at a phenomenal rate - the Griff Rhys Jones thingy every year makes me want to cry. Yet it did seem to me that EH would rather they all just vanished into the ether than really proactively seeking new owners and working with them rather than against them.

One of my friends is an archeologist, and he's grumbled occasionally about property developers being unappreciative. I can see what he means now! For heaven's sake, it's not the archeologist's fault that a building is a scheduled ancient monument, they knew that when they bought it.

But Aloha I think that programmed showed that EH WAS working with him! At what point didn't they work with him? THey said "we have such a good working relationship and we trust each other so much we are going to wing it with the roof and let him do what he wants"

SURELY that is as good a relationship as you can expect to find between a developer and a guardian of heritage?

Confused

Katymac - no, of course it's not that black and white. But from an archaeological point of view, changing it without doing any archaeological evaluation/recording work is almost as damaging as it falling down.

I'm not blaming the individual archaologist. But I thought that EH was obstructive. It wasn't like he was trying to knock it down and turn it into a luxury development of identikit flats.