Original subtitles

Construction is really hard.

Whether it's a road or a skyscraper or a house,

it has to happen outside in all kinds of weathers.

So you want to give yourself an easy time, don't you?

You want to make sure the planning process is relatively smooth,

that you choose a level and reliable piece of ground to build on,

that you have enough money in the bank to pay for it all.

If you don't have these things in place, do not expect an easy ride.

The Peak District National Park

is a prehistoric limestone landscape

that is filled with folklore and strange archaic traditions,

such as well dressing.

Well dressing is the ancient Derbyshire art

of sticking petals on clay to make a design.

It sounds bizarre, but it goes back a long way in this village.

Two of the Peak District's finest well dressers

are Fred and Saffron Baker.

For them, this ancient pastime holds a lot of personal significance.

It is also where I met Saffron, many years ago now.

I used to insist, when I was a child, that I put in the last petal.

And my first impression of her wasn't good.

HE CHUCKLES But, er...that changed!

But ancient ephemeral arts

aren't the only contribution Fred and Saffron want to make

to this community.

They are also planning something a little bit more permanent.

Well, this is the dale where I grew up.

I spent my whole childhood here, one way or another.

And this is now where I'm going to build a house.

Two, three, go!

It's been Fred's dream forever to build his own home.

It's all the children have known.

But now it's our project.

He might have the ideas, but it's not going to happen without me.

That one's mine!

That was mine, actually!

OK!

A few years ago, Saffron and Fred spent close to £100,000

on an old dairy just outside Bakewell,

in the village where Fred's ancestors

have lived for generations.

This is the site!

Very undeveloped. Right on the edge.

I mean, this is the last bit of land

before open countryside, yeah? Yes.

And you've got this little hut

and that remnant of a building there.

So is this where you build? Is this what you do?

No, no. So the building is basically over there.

Good Lord!

People may have built on this site up by the road,

but no-one has dared to take on this steep hillside.

Getting machinery onto this site and storing materials...

Yeah, that will be a challenge.

..is going to be logistically challenging, isn't it?

You've got one way in, one way out, it's a slope.

Every structural engineer that I have stood here with

has sucked their teeth and gone, "Oh, really? Are you sure?"

It's like, "Well, yes, we have designed the house for this site."

The difficulty is actually building it. Yeah, building it!

Well, it's been difficult in planning,

so building it is going to be a piece of cake.

How long were you in planning to get it? Seven years.

Good grief!

Well, I was in my 30s when I started this process.

I was 50 this year.

But we didn't have a plan B. We had no plan B.

So you just kept pushing? Yep. So we just kept at it.

Fred is an ecologist

and he and Saffron run a successful consultancy

helping big companies fulfil their environmental obligations.

It's critical their house reaches the highest eco standards.

One of the things that I'd always wanted to do

was to build an earth-shelter house

and this plot was absolutely ideal.

The whole ethos of the build is that it should be sustainable

and it takes advantage of its position.

So its south-facing aspect

meant that we could actually heat it almost entirely from the sun.

I mean, listening to you speak, I can understand

why you kept going at this since 2003

because of the site, the aspect, where it faces,

being of the village, you being of this place.

You know, as you say, there was no...plan B.

Having got planning permission, Saffron put her job on hold

to help manage the site with their main contractor and architects.

Work will begin by excavating the thick Derbyshire limestone

to make a huge step in the rock.

This may be an environmental home,

but there are no hay bales or mud walls here.

Concrete will form the platform for the house to sit on.

And more carbon-heavy materials, like blockwork and steel,

will form the rooms and the superstructure.

To offset all this, Fred wants this house to be heated by the sun.

So a wall of south-facing glazing

will allow sunlight in to warm the concrete foundations,

and then that heat will be locked in at night

by closing heavily-insulated timber shutters.

Three modest bedrooms and two bathrooms

will be tucked into the hill on the lowest floor.

But it's the middle floor where this house really will open up.

The main living spaces will be drenched in light

and will take in some spectacular views across the valley.

The kitchen, snug and family room of the middle floor

will be crowned by the smallest floor at the top,

which will house Fred's timber-clad office

and a timber bridge leading to the front door.

Disguised as a traditional Derbyshire barn,

this small stone-clad top floor

will be the only visible part of this house from the road.

And all the stone used to clad the barn

will be recycled from the site in the local vernacular.

This place has the potential to be a beautiful home to live in.

But a possible nightmare to build.

So what is the cost of it, then?

At the moment, that isn't set, there's no fixed contract,

priced contract yet.

We know what we're aiming at.

I know what I can borrow,

when the bank finally get round to agreeing a mortgage,

and the rest...

What, you mean they haven't yet? No.

And the rest of it comes from the profitability of our business

and our savings as we go along.

We're going to live in this house for the rest of our lives

and the key thing is that we can build the structure

watertight, habitable, etc, etc.

How much, then, to get you to that point

where you can move in and you've got a habitable house?

So my target amount is 600.

I can pay for them to dig the hole in the ground

and then the bank have to come up trumps.

They have no mortgage and no idea what this house will end up costing.

Nevertheless, by early September, the diggers have moved onto site.

We did a bit of a test dig yesterday,

just to see what was there.

And I looked down into the hole

and I wondered, "What the heck have we let ourselves in for?!"

Fred and Saffron have taken responsibility

for the excavation themselves,

using two local farmers.

They'll need to remove over 800 tonnes of hard limestone

before they can start filling it back up with their new house.

Yeah, I think they're mental, building it here, really.

But hopefully, it won't rain

and then we'll stay where we are instead of down in to the dale.

It's our very own quarry!

Look at the size of that!

For the past eight years, the family have been renting

one of the village's more traditional houses.

My father always wanted to build a house.

He never did it.

It was an ambition that I probably inherited from him.

That's my father up there. He died five years ago now.

He was always very supportive of what we were trying to achieve.

That desire to build goes back a very long way.

I never thought I'd actually do it.

In fact, I still don't!

The temptation of work, careers and new homes

means Fred has seen many of his childhood friends

leave this village.

But his commitment to this place is constant.

As is that of his mother,

who still lives in the house both she and Fred grew up in.

Fred is treading in a venerable path here

of family members who have built houses, yeah?

His grandfather built this. Yes, yes.

Now Fred is building his house up the hill. He's doing his up there.

Which is wonderful.

I do feel quite proud

that he's been able to build a house in the village.

I mean, all his contemporaries have had to go away.

The loss of a generation moving out

is...is just so sad.

What do you reckon to the house, though?

I don't think it will be a house that...I will choose to live in.

And I think it's going to be just a little bit too modern for me.

Their design maybe modern,

but they are excavating through ancient limestone,

a seemingly epic task.

Three weeks in, progress has slowed.

It is getting harder, isn't it, now?

Unfortunately.

We've got to go down another three meters into the rock again.

So, obviously, we're going deeper again,

so it's going to be harder, so...

What would you say, Ben? Are we halfway yet or not, do you think?

I wouldn't say so, no.

It looks like we have got a lot further on than we have,

but I don't think we have, really, now.

Two months into a year-long project

and Fred and Saffron still don't have the mortgage

they need to start laying the foundations.

We've had an e-mail conversation with the broker.

They are wanting to charge me a vast amount more money

to continue with the progress of this mortgage application,

which I think we are going to have to pay.

That's the way it is.

I've had an e-mail conversation with Jennifer today.

I'm going to push for them to actually come to site,

because they can't be that far away.

We spent a whole load of years

talking about how unique this project is.

But when you talk to the banks,

you've got to tell them how normal it is,

because they don't want a unique project.

They want something that's really easy to understand.

By early December, the excavation is almost complete

and this project looks anything but conventional.

The scale is quite breath-taking.

This is just like walking into a very large Derbyshire quarry.

What a place, hey?

The hole, obviously, has to be large enough,

excavated large enough, to be able to fit the building in it,

so they need working space around the building.

You have to ask, however, why on earth...?

In building into this kind of really solid rock,

you could almost just stick a roof on the top and move in.

It's cost almost 25 grand to get this far,

but there's no mortgage and no-one is prepared to lend

on such an unusual project.

By the end of the year, all work has stopped.

It's just really frustrating. I just want to get on with it.

I want to get on with it and I don't like the fact

that people who don't know anything about our project

or what it means to us are making decisions.

We're going to build it.

It might take longer.

A bank is not going to stop me building this house.

# Rise morning sun

# Rising

# Rise morning sun... #

Fred and Saffron Baker have spent the past 13 years

dreaming of building an earth-sheltered house

in the village where Fred grew up, in the Peak District.

So far, with no mortgage and no sight of one,

all they have been able to afford is an enormous hole.

At the moment we haven't got a project.

It's not done anything for three months.

And just to be held up at this last minute is just so frustrating.

Building your own house is not for the faint-hearted

and it tests your relationship, absolutely.

We want to live in this house when we've built it,

we don't want to hate it or each other.

So we've got to make it work.

Six months in and the site is still empty.

But there are finally reasons for optimism.

How's the project?

Well, we're building a house.

How's the finance? We have some, which is good.

A mortgage? Yes, we did.

We found a mortgage from the people we should have gone to

right at the beginning.

Sorted it out in three weeks. Oh, my Lord! How much?

500,000.

When's it start? We've had the first payment.

You'd think that would be a champagne moment, wouldn't you?

Well, you'd thinks so! Was it? We were exhausted.

It was relief, more than celebration.

The mortgage is a positive step,

but the pressure on Fred and Saffron is unrelenting.

This is the windows payment here, I think

Their main contractor has come back with a construction quote

that's almost a ?100,000 more than they were expecting.

That's still a worrying figure, though.

I know, I've no idea how we fix it.

To save money, they're going to have to strip back on finishes

and hope they'll have enough to make this house habitable.

By late May, and nine months in, the groundworks team have moved in

and the pouring of this building's concrete shell can finally begin.

Here is the concrete.

The concrete structure ought to be finished in three months,

so Fred and Saffron might move in by Christmas.

We should be able to see.

He's lining it up with this hopper here.

Can you see, Billy?

Almost a decade in planning

and at last there are some signs of a building.

But this won't be the first concrete home

to try and bury itself in the Peak District.

So this is a garden which is also a house.

A building which inspired Fred and Saffron.

I say it's a building.

It's not architecture that you can recognise from the outside, is it?

It's what the man who built it called geo-tecture.

Geo is Greek for earth, and this house is covered in it.

The man behind this building is architect Arthur Quarmby,

one of the biggest proponents of earth-sheltered houses in Europe.

The green exterior is a big contrast to what's inside.

HE CHUCKLES

What a centrepiece that is!

Look, I know this place looks like a 1970s film set but,

on the other hand, it was built then.

The architect who put it together, Arthur Quarmby,

lived here for 41 years before he sold it recently.

And it's quite important that Arthur Quarmby was an inspiration

for Fred and Saffron here

because a lot of the ideas in their house have taken a lead from here.

They've got these flowing spaces,

a connection between floors through light wells, big glazed areas.

For Fred and Saffron, this building doesn't just hold ideas,

it is also where ten years ago,

their dream for an earth-sheltered house first took shape.

Now, you see this view across the valley,

this place is where Arthur Quarmby sat and drew at his table here,

the first iteration of Fred and Saffron's house. How about that?

I bet, in fact, if I go outside, there's more of a connection.

Ha-ha! Look at this...

If you were to repeat this elevation three or four storeys deep,

then you have their home.

This is the prototype, almost, for what they're building.

You can recognise the connection between them,

the DNA that they share.

It's hard to imagine how Fred and Saffron's house

will ever be in keeping with its surroundings.

At the moment, it looks more like an underground car park.

Getting to grips with the steep incline and access

is causing some painful delays.

Probably the hardest thing on the build is the access.

I would say, on a weekly basis, we're kind of re-adjusting the ramp

to work certain areas and service certain areas.

I would say it's probably adding about 15% to 20%

above what it would take to build this traditionally out of ground.

By August, this project is way behind schedule.

The concrete work should have been almost finished by now,

but they're not even halfway through.

Wow.

It's like coming down a scree on the side of a peak.

Blockwork, lots of steel, slab, massive formwork.

This isn't a building, this is a piece of civil engineering.

Oh, and I can just see the edge of the timber

that is lining the shuttering.

And that, when it's removed, is going to leave

a beautiful board-marked finish on the concrete in the kitchen.

That's the lovely thing about concrete,

it is a plastic medium that will take the surface texture

of whatever is holding it while it sets.

You can't help but be impressed by the scale of the concrete work.

But for Saffron, the mounting delays are pure frustration.

It is slower than I would hope.

This stage has probably taken an extra 20% or 30% longer,

which is quite a long time. Yeah, you have my sympathy about that.

But you made this rod for your own backs, it is of your making.

It is. We chose this site, we chose this site,

it's awkward to develop on.

Getting out the ground is what is the pain, that's where...

And it's all in the ground, so... And it's all in the ground.

And the access is outrageous!

What's the financial knock-on from the delays to the work so far?

Our rent. But now I can see where the money could go,

I don't want to spend any more. Yeah.

Fred and Saffron still don't know if they have enough cash

to fully complete this project

and they've made some brave choices for the interior

to bring the costs down,

like leaving much of the blockwork exposed.

This is actually, at the moment, my favourite bit of the building.

What, this downstairs bit? This downstairs back corridor.

Oh, yeah?

These walls are sort of more or less, as is, as they're going to be?

It's a cost issue.

Certainly, initially, we are going to have bare breeze-block walls

and over time it will evolve.

You've had to use how many cubic meters of concrete?

185.

That's enough! Yeah.

And the steel? All of which has a heavy carbon impact.

That's the bit that hurts, actually. Does it?

Yeah, there are compromises along the way and, you know,

I'd have loved to have used an eco-concrete product,

but actually nobody could do it.

It's standard concrete, admittedly, and, yeah, that hurts.

So the carbon impact of making all this steel and all this cement

and resourcing this building

might well be paid back in how many years, do you reckon?

I think five to ten years.

Exposed concrete walls aren't typical of many eco-houses,

but Fred wants zero heating bills,

and the use of concrete will be key in achieving that.

What I am drawing here is a sort of schematic representation

of Fred and Saffron's house.

Big concrete box set into the rock behind.

Of course, concrete is a very, very environmentally-harmful material.

For every tonne of cement produced, a tonne of carbon's produced.

Nevertheless, it has fantastic abilities to store heat.

The sun, of course, will beam in, heat the concrete.

The difficulty is, this glass is always

going lose heat at night.

So what's their solution? It's brilliant,.

It's to build shutters,

which are also brilliantly insulated.

It should mean, they can stay warm

with no extra energy inputs into the building at all.

To save money,

by October, Fred and Saffron give notice on their rented house.

An optimistic move, because their new home

has only just revealed its first finished detail.

This is our beautiful board-formed concrete wall of the kitchen,

and will be lit from the top,

so you'll see all that lovely relief in it from the timbers.

It's beautiful. I love it.

A glimpse of what's to come.

But this is an unforgiving site.

It can be quite tricky.

A lot of slipping and sliding and stuff like that with the rain.

To avoid the expense of a crane,

everything on this site is now manoeuvred by hand.

I just can't imagine how they are going to do this.

How are they going to lift it?

Just hold it there, John, keep it there!

Whoa! That'll do!

It's slow progress,

on a project which is now three months behind schedule.

There's a whole list of things to do before it's a proper reality.

I can't tell when it will feel like our home.

In the heart of the Peak District,

Fred and Saffron are now 14 months into their project.

Around 325 tonnes of concrete

have been poured into their hole in the ground.

Everybody at school's talking about it

and saying, "Have you got to this stage yet? Is the concrete in?"

And stuff like that.

They don't ask me anything.

Can I just get the tape straight, please, mate?

Progress has been slow so, so to try and save some time,

the steels for the middle floor

are being measured and cut to size on site.

5615 is tight, so you need to take 10mm off that.

But it will only save weeks

on a project that is running months behind.

Since she's on site every day,

Saffron can enjoy the occasional big step forward.

Like the steel tray floors,

which have at last enclosed some of the spaces.

Fred would obviously like to be here every day,

because it's hard for him missing out on stuff.

But he's got loads of really exciting work on,

which is what's paying for this building.

So that's just the way it is.

Fred only gets to site in the evenings and at weekends.

Of course, it is right and proper

that you are away earning money to pay for it.

Well, it's a necessity. Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

It's frustrating because I, you know, I like to be hands-on.

How are the finances? I think, budget-wise, we'll hit it.

We've stripped out a lot.

Where have the compromises been?

The compromises have been in interiors. Right.

Things like plaster, paint...

Yeah, thinks like plaster, paint,

you know, ceilings that we decided not to put in.

They'll be nothing else to strip out soon!

We'll be back to this! Yeah.

What about the insulated shutters? Are they a luxury that you...?

No, they're not. No, they are a necessity.

They will be going in. Oh, OK.

Tat thermal efficiency of the building

is something that I won't compromise on. Car park aesthetic.

Car park aesthetic. On the inside, I think you'll be surprised, Kevin.

Super house functionality.

I think you'll be surprised by the interior.

Do you reckon? Because I think I'm looking at most of it already!

The insulated shutters that promise zero heating bills

are already being hand-made in Sheffield.

How's it going?

Is this the first one? This is the first one.

Thick insulation is sandwiched between two skins of timber.

You don't know how critical this is for our house,

for how this whole house functions!

It's now late autumn

and Saffron's getting ready to move house towards the end of the month.

Not into their new home, but to live with Fred's mum.

We moved in here temporarily whilst we got planning permission to build.

It was always temporary.

So we have made it home.

We've had, you know, eight, nine...eight Christmases here.

But not this one!

For over a year, Fred and Saffron have been given nothing to look at

but rock, mud and concrete.

As their new house takes shape,

we're heading to the other side of the valley

to get a different perspective.

So this is the first time that I've come across

to have a look across the opposite side of the dale.

It looks like a proper building, you know what I mean?

As oppose to an extended piece of groundworks.

I can see the finished building,

how it's going to look

and how it's going to blend into that hillside. Good.

It's the first time I've been able to see that, actually.

Now the lids are on and that curve's starting to form,

I can actually see how the whole...

You'll be up here every tea-time, won't you?

It's probably good for you.

It's good to get the physical perspective that you get here

in order to understand, you know...

I shall be coming up here more often. You should.

Yeah, I think we need to walk, we need to come up here every week.

It's the first time I've seen this and it is...

Yeah, it's breath-taking, actually.

Yeah.

But Fred and Saffron's new perspective is short-lived.

A sudden cold snap heralds the beginning of another winter

and the last concrete pour for the roofs

has been delayed by almost a month.

By December, the family have had to move in with their new landlady.

Well, at the moment, I've got my son and his wife

and their two children living with me.

Have you done mine?

I've done them. Yeah, I've done them already.

I did yours last night. Yeah, I did them last night.

I've learnt to just sort of bite my tongue.

I would never put a milk bottle on the table,

even at breakfast!

Today, the roofs go on.

It's taken far too long to get to this point, but we're here now.

And it's not snowing, so that's a good thing.

We're essentially six months behind.

So there's been further delay,

mainly because of the groundworks.

In fact, entirely because of the groundworks.

This will be the final day on site for the groundworks team.

A job that was supposed to take three months

has taken close to seven.

Yeah, it's been a difficult job. Access has been a bit awkward.

We have gone over the programme, but you can't rush quality.

In the New Year, the top floor barn goes up

and the first piece of timber makes its way on site.

This should be a momentous day.

But Saffron's had bad news from the contractors.

It's not going to be finished until June,

which has taken me the best part of two months to accept, I think.

It's difficult to take,

it's knocked the wind out of my sails a bit, I think.

I think I was expecting to move out of our rented accommodation

and then feel renewed energy for this project,

but that didn't happened.

What actually happened was the stress kind of took hold

and got to me and...

..I've not been able to do very much, really.

Saffron's difficulty is accompanied by a harsh winter.

But by April, she and Fred have restructured their finances.

At last, something positive has come from all those delays.

Business-wise, we had a good year last year,

so I'm able to release a little bit more money

than I thought I was going to be able to.

Fred and Saffron are also increasing their mortgage.

In total, they'll have an extra ?130,000.

That'll get spent on stonework cladding, an extra bathroom

and some landscaping.

Even so, they're standing by the decision

to leave much of the blockwork exposed.

I don't think I would ever choose to see blockwork.

I'm sure it will irritate me.

But for financial reasons, I'm happy to make that blockwork attractive.

Fred and Saffron are going to spend over ?700,000 on this building.

But for the first time, they know they can afford to finish it.

Tea!

As the windows go in, there is a new optimism on site.

That's very satisfying.

Well, this is going to be where I sit and work.

I love it. Absolutely love it!

There's absolutely no way

I could have built this house without Saffron.

Absolutely no way.

She's taken what was my dream and turned it into our dream

and made it happen.

I want this office now. You're out. It's my space!

This project wouldn't have happened without you.

You found the builders, you found the architects.

This wouldn't have happened with out you.

Better get it right, then!

By early summer, this eco-house has started to produce electricity.

The curved concrete terraces are taking shape

and the top floor barn

is receiving its remarkable cladding of napped stone.

How beautiful.

Oak roof, beautiful wall, which is...

Oh, it's almost engineered.

This is... This is something else.

After a year of seeing nothing but concrete on this site,

it's a real joy to see properly-napped,

beautifully-bedded dry stone.

If they can do to the front of the building what they've done here...

..it's going to be a cracker.

The quaint Derbyshire barn is sitting on top of a concrete shell,

where the car park aesthetic is really coming together.

Pipes, tubes, wires, guts.

Yep, arteries. Some people would loathe this.

Have you got enough money to finish it?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

We just wanted to get it to a state

where it was going to be as finished as we possibly could. Yeah.

We're so desperate to get in now.

Over the coming months,

all the new available cash has been spent

on their kitchen and bathroom fittings.

Elsewhere, compromises are still on show.

By mid-summer, the annual well dressing festival is underway.

Saffron now knows her family are on the threshold of something new.

This is something that we've fought for for a long time.

It'll be something, the beginning of a new life.

So I don't feel like we're racing to the finish.

I feel like we're kind of trotting towards the start line.

I've been visiting Fred and Saffron in the Peak District

for over two years.

It's one of my favourite landscapes - it's heroic and momentous,

a place to walk, think and dream.

A place where not everything is as it seems.

Well, that building looks like it's sort of...a little hut, a workshop.

Absolutely a decoy for what's underneath it.

The beautifully wrought barn and porch give no hint

of the struggle that lay beneath.

No suggestion of the buried concrete fortress

now wrapped in stone and timber.

My word! It looks like a great...

..curving cliff of stone.

All that rubble has been assembled into this beautiful shape.

What a deceit, hey?

Every stone was dug out of the ground here, split,

shaped and faced to produce walls that are unerringly fine.

It's mesmerising work.

It's hard to imagine the sloping scrap of land that once was here.

Fred and Saffron's patience would seem to have been rewarded.

Hello!

Oh, it's very good to see you both. Are you all right?

Yeah, yeah, I am, how are you?

And this is looking just...peachy.

Absolutely great. And from the road, no indication at all of what's here.

Absolutely nothing at all. Just a bungalow.

The stonework is particularly fine.

The stone's almost become one thing, one surface.

I think it's just triumphant. What's it like inside?

Erm... Is it done? Are you in?

Yes, yes, we're in. Good! Come on, then. Come on!

Yeah, yeah.

Into the dark corridor.

And into...

Ooh! Into some light.

Oh, into a great deal of light.

This middle floor is open and bright,

despite those heavy blockwork walls.

Do you know, this is...

..this is very surprising because I was fully prepared for all the conduit and the exposing,

but I was not prepared for all of the timber and that,

all that panelling up there.

There's a lot of very finely crafted lining of this building

that's gone on.

And the tubes and pipes everywhere do not exactly...

I mean, OK, it's a raw, brutalist finish in a way,

but it's not minimal, is it?

I wasn't sure I was going to like it,

but I like the honesty of it now.

The craftsmen who did all of this worked

so hard to get this looking right.

You mean the plumber and electrician?

The plumber and electrician. Yeah, yeah!

Because, for the first time ever, their work has been on show.

It's exquisite.

It's sort of semi-open plan. You're kind of drawn, aren't you?

Yes.

This is your beautiful staircase down.

And then through to music room.

Music room, spare room. It's, it's... It's magical.

The exposed blockwork began as a cost-saving exercise.

It seems to have emerged as a style of decoration.

I don't know how you feel. I mean, is this, is this finished?

What's interesting is I didn't think it was, but now I'm here with it,

I'm seeing it's not a hotel, this is our home and, actually...

That, up there...?

Yeah, that'll stay. I don't want it filling. Why would you fill it?

It's a block that got dropped on its way to being put there.

That's OK.

It's not common, what you've done.

No. It's that juxtaposition all the time between the personal,

the finished, the polished, the cherished and the raw.

And it's only when you put them together that you realise that,

actually, it doesn't really matter how raw the raw is.

And I do, you know, I walk around and it makes me excited.

Just looking, whether it's the stonework outside or the,

you know, the kitchen, the light.

All of those details just bring a smile to your face.

This semi-open floor has one slightly cosier concrete snug.

But, upstairs, on the very top floor, in the barn,

the building becomes fully refined.

Oh, there's no more concrete up here. In fact, it's all wood.

So this is the only level that's above ground,

and as you go down, you go down into the concrete.

I do like the idea of arriving and immediately being faced with a bridge.

It's like, there's the portcullis, there's the draw bridge.

Up here, Fred's contained ply-lined office captures some pretty

good views across the hills.

What a very nice place to work.

As you descend from the dizzy heights of the barn at road level

to the lowest level where the bedrooms are,

the plywood timber linings give way to more and more solid masonry.

Down here, it's the only place

that you've used stone inside the building. Inside. Because?

We started off light and airy up at the top end,

and this is the sleeping room.

So it's enclosed... Yeah. ..cave-like.

This is perhaps the most unfinished, raw part of the house.

There are three straightforward bedrooms, each of which enjoys

the views and a splash of luxury in a polished plaster bathroom.

Concrete aesthetic apart,

this house was never primarily about how it looks, but how it works.

I have been very excited to see these.

They're just like bifold doors, really.

Yeah, they are. They're bifold doors and... Oh, wow!

..they close up. And they've got seals? They've got rubber seals?

Seals, and this keeps all the heat in at night.

What's your big objective here?

The objective here is a zero carbon house,

so it doesn't take any energy to run it.

Of course, this house isn't just for Fred and Saffron,

it's for their children too.

For Billy and Grace, family conversations about building

and planning have dominated most of their lives.

What do you think about the house, though, generally?

I wasn't expecting to see the pipes and the blockwork from the inside.

It's amazing, I really like all of it.

Do you feel proud of your parents? BOTH: Yeah.

Because they're my parents, and that's what they'll always be.

They've done an amazing job.

It looks really good.

This building has only just begun to show its charm,

and as the hillside heals,

it will be more and more absorbed into the landscape.

There is a very obvious hanging question about this project which,

given the fact that you didn't know how much it would cost

when you started and had no...

well, not much in the way of money to pay for it!

How much, do you know, did it cost to get this far?

It's got a seven in front of it.

A seven, but nothing near an eight?

I would think it's quite near an eight.

There's a few things to come in and we've done a lot more

of the landscaping than we were planning to do.

So, late ?700,000, nearly ?800,000.

On top of that, you've got land and fees and extras

and all kinds of mucking about. Planning, the years it took...

Oh, yeah, no, you can't quantify that stuff.

So, what, you're getting on for a million quid or something, aren't you? Yeah. Easy!

Yeah, well, there's some things I've never added up

and communicated because you'd just be terrified, yeah.

I think that's remarkable that you both accept that it's just money,

because you both believed that you would get here.

This was something we've planned and dreamt of doing, you know,

for 16 years.

And we're going to be here for ever.

You know, it's worth it.

All of that was worth it in order to achieve this one

thing of being able to stay in this place?

Stay in the same place?

Well, that continuity was really important,

and that's where it started from, is wanting to remain in the village.

Do you think that the length of time and, for that matter,

Saffron's kind of very energetic role here, has that caused friction?

It has been difficult, but, you know, relationships,

building houses, you have to work at it.

I think it's made us stronger. We couldn't have done it separately.

So it's a keeper? Oh, yeah.

Somebody asked me the other day, "Are you doing this to sell?"

No, I don't think you quite understand what we've been through to get it!

No, this is it, why would you need to do it again?

Sitting here, it's architecturally adventurous, it's complex,

it's rich.

To the village, it's a little... Tiny little barn.

..stone barn, yeah.

So, what is it?

It's our home.

I don't mind how it's labelled by anybody else.

It's been made with passion by everybody who's worked on it.

We've got to this point with determination and positivity,

and I'm really proud of that.

Been over the valley much to look at it? No.

I have not seen it from the far side.

We've got to go over and look at it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we do.

THEY LAUGH

Look at that!

Wow! It's a great view from here.

That is so exciting, to see it from this side.

What I want to know, really, actually, Fred,

is whether you feel this does what it's meant to do on the lid?

I love it, absolutely love it.

It's given me the wow factor from this side of the dale.

It's blended in much more quickly than I imagined it to.

You know, OK, we've worked really hard at the landscaping, but it has.

We've been building it, we've got to know how it works...

We got to know it in a different way.

..and how we relate to it. Yeah.

Home.

You might think it a miracle that this place even exists,

given its early financial history.

But then, miracles do require faith.

And there was a lot of that here - Saffron's faith, her absolute

determined belief that this project was going to get completed.

Her inability to accept that it would not exist,

coupled with Fred's quieter faith,

his faith in the power of place and his connection to it.

In the end, it is the architecture of quiet determination.

We've got what's officially the smallest two-bedroom house

possible in London.

This is a bit of a new challenge,

to put a basement on a piece of land the size of a postage stamp.

This is spectacularly shambolic.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!

Yeah, I've lost 30 grand on this.

Stand out!

Everything's taking much longer than we thought.

And you've made it more complex?

Oh, 100%, yeah. Why not? HE LAUGHS