All language subtitles for Grand Designs - Pembrokeshire 2016

There is, among these hills,
a quiet revolution going on.

Those of us who care about
the environment, myself included,

worry about our carbon footprint
and climate change and we know

we have to stop
gobbling the world resources,

but few of us do much about it.

Not so one couple.

They are real role models here.

They are part of a pioneering group
of self-builders who are

leading the way in low-impact
living and I, for one,

am absolutely in awe
of what they are doing.

The glorious Welsh hillsides have
been seducing the brave and

the different since the 1970s.

Simon and Jasmine Dale and their
two children, Elfie and Cosmo,

moved here to Pembrokeshire
to pursue a new way of life.

I think I'm like a generation
of people that are deciding to

come back to living on the land.

It's just that we want to have less
impact on the environment

and we really feel like having
a life base outside.

They are the latest
in a long line of couples,

loaners and families, even organised
groups, who are turning their backs

on consumerism and to try to forge
new relationships with the land.

We're trying to follow our dreams
and we're trying to live

a simple life so we're setting up
a smallholding here,

we're building our own homes
bringing in animals,

growing food and trying to care
for this piece of land.

Simon left behind his work
as a photographer,

while Jasmine used to work
in environmental education.

They moved on to their seven-acre
plot two years ago

and are about to start building
their permanent home.

That's why I'm here.

Ah, hello.
Hello. Hi. Kevin.

How are you? Simon.

Pleased to meet you.
And you. Nice spot.

Is this is where you're going to
build your house? That's right.

Just here. There's our view.
It's sited to maximise that.

South is sort of that way?

Yes. Definitely got
to be orientated south.

Yes, because you're going to build
the house which benefits

from where you are. Ideally.

Capture as much of that
thermal energy as possible,

for the heating, so we can reduce
our heating costs and load.

Have you done this
kind of thing before?

Are you taking a step out
from conventional life now,

or have you already done that?

We've been moving into this sort
of way of living for about a decade.

This will be actually
the fourth home

that we've built for our family.

It's going to be the first one

that's of a size
to last us for a lifetime.

Simon's already put up a modest,
one-room house

for the family to live in,
a temporary fix,

while he builds the new home which
will be nearly four times the size.

But it does give you a good idea
of their organic style and his

talent for craftsmanship.

So, you're stood probably on the
outside wall of the building.

We've got an upstairs layer,
basically,

which runs along
the top of the hill.

So there is like a storey, then.

It's like a storey, if you like.

We're going to put one layer
at the top of the hill

and then we're going to step down
and make another layer below it.

The top one's going to be primarily
bedrooms and a bathroom

and the bottom one's
going to be our living area.

Now, look, how Hobbity
is this house going to look?

It's going to look medium-Hobbity.
Medium. I like that.

I like the honesty. Medium-Hobbity.

We want to be have fun, as well,
at the same time.

Some straight lines, then,
and some curves? Yes.

How are you going to stop it from
looking too random,

too higgledy piggledy?
Plaster it all in. Oh, really?

Plaster it all in an one
continuous, smooth curve.

I presume you're not having to get
a mortgage on this building.

We're not. No.

Yes, that's partly what we're trying
to get away from by taking

a very simple approach to life. How
much have you got to spend on this?

At the moment,
we've not got very much.

But we're going to see how
we go and we got

a few things to come in along the
way. How much is not very much? 500?

5,000? 50? In the bank at the
moment, more like 500-ish.

But, you know, I think with a will,
we're going to get here.

Earn, borrow, beg, steal.
That's right. Fine. Yes.

As far as I can tell, Simon and
Jasmine are starting to build

their family home with just £500
in the bank.

That is adventurous.

As is the design and scope
of what they want to do.

On the top of their
south-facing plot,

Simon and Jasmine will be excavating
12 feet into the hillside.

Along the back, they will build
a very large retaining wall

out of sandbags, filled with
the earth they've dug out.

The floors will be
of rammed earth,

polished and hardened
with linseed oil.

The structure of the house will be
made from round pole timber,

all grown, felled,
prepared and sawn by Simon.

The roof will also be made
of round pole timber,

covered by two big cash items -

a damp-proof membrane and a goodly
measure of sheep's wool insulation.

The exterior timber-framed walls
will be filled with straw bales.

The windows will be reclaimed,
so the size and shape will depend

on what they can get locally.

Wrapping around the ground floor at
the sunny front will be

a greenhouse to preheat air for the
house as well as for

propagating and growing food.

The kitchen will unsurprisingly
be reclaimed.

Units and appliances will all come
from car-boot sales and eBay.

The staircase, handmade by Simon,

will lead to a mezzanine floor with
a small study,

and at the top of the house, Simon
and Jasmine's bedroom,

a family bathroom and the two
children's bedrooms.

The straw bale walls will be
protected by a line render to

unify the disparate arrangement of
recycled and natural materials.

And there'll be a grass roof,
of course,

to insulate and visually incorporate
the building into the hillside.

This won't be a cramped hobbit
house, but a spacious, solid,

three-bedroomed,
low-impact family home.

One thing you should know is that
Simon and Jasmine aren't

alone on this hillside.

There are eight other families
living here too.

They're all part of Lammas -
an experimental,

first-of-its-kind,
Welsh Assembly-inspired eco-village.

'I figure once
we finish these works,

'we won't have to touch this
again in our lifetime.'

It's a planning condition that every
household must meet its basic

needs from the land within
five years.

Otherwise they have to leave.

Yeah, it is a complex mechanism to
keep the land productive,

but in effect it means making
firewood,

some amount of your food,
providing your own shelter,

dealing with your own waste,

sourcing your own energy and having
a small business of some type.

It is pioneering stuff.

Then, maybe, if you're finished with
that...

You might think this is just
a bunch of hippies having fun on the

side of a hill in Wales, but this is
actually a research project

and an initiative which is enshrined
in government policy now.

Every family that comes to live
on this project

has to demonstrate within five years
that, from their seven acres

that they've bought, at
agricultural rates, they can be
self-sufficient...

..to the tune of 75%
of their everyday basic needs.

That is some ask.

The big task starts badly with
a miserably wet winter.

Too wet to start digging into the
hillside.

So, Simon can't even start to build
the house for six months,

but he can plan and prepare the
site, and I can help him.

So, we've got the staff, very
familiar to the building site. Yes.

And we've got the budget sight
level.

So, we look through here, two water
levels, object in the far distance.

And I think, like, from this we can
go across the field and be

within a couple of inches of level.

If you can take the staff over
to the hedgerow,

we're going to try and get it as far
out of the way as possible,

and I'll tell you whether to go up
or down the hill. Good.

If you could come down the hill
about a foot towards you.

1, 10, 20, 30...

Yeah, that's great, there.

Perfect.

What I like about this method is the
total cost so far is zero.

Oh, no, two screws. Two screws.
Two screws.

Since arriving, Simon and Jasmine
have built their small home

and prepared the land.

Now Jasmine has just two years to

ramp up her smallholding and get
self-sufficient.

Part of living here, we've all got
to have a livelihood

that comes off the land,

and so mine is these edible
perennial plants, so it's plants

that are useful for nature and as
useful for humans, stuff I can
propagate

to sell, because I do need to
make an income from this land.

You think that this piece of land
is large enough for you to do this?

When I see the field demarcated
like this, I think,

"Oh, my God, I've got plenty of
room for the veg.

"I've got more than enough room to
propagate my plants.

"I've got the other field with
my grazing and my sheep.'

Yeah, I do think it is.

And small areas are much more
productive per metre squared

than big farms, because they've got
that intensity of care and use.

ENGINE TURNS OVER

At last the weather improves and
Simon is confident that the

earth is stable enough to
begin digging.

Using some of their small cash pot,
he's hired a digger.

It feels like a privilege to be with
the whole family and to witness

this moment.

It's the beginning of a new and
arduous chapter for Simon and
Jasmine.

One however that is overshadowed by
an onerous planning condition, the

commercial demands of growing their
smallholding, an absurd lack of

money and all the perils of building
a house with their bare hands.

That is indeed a big ask.

The summer heat has descended
on the eco-village of Lammas.

Jasmine and Simon
can profit from the weather

and dig their excavations.

And Simon has a secret weapon

for building a house with just
?500 in the bank. Volunteers.

This is like a giant sand castle.

It's like going back
to your childhood.

People from all over the world who
want to learn how to build this kind

of low-impact house live and
work with the families at Lammas.

I think, for a lot of the people
who are here,

money is not the foremost
thing in mind.

People who are really
following some dreams and ambitions

and following what
brings them joy in life.

You know, for a lot of them,
it's about travelling
from place to place,

where they can call and just
simply exchange a bit of labour

for a bit of keep and they can
sustain a really rich and varied,

interesting life, without having
to have a big income to fund it.

The task in hand is to construct

a retaining wall
to hold the hill back.

And Simon has a plan
on how to do it

which costs next to nothing and
it doesn't use a scrap of concrete.

He's got hold of hundreds
of yellow sacks off eBay

that cost just seven pence each.

And he's filling them with a mix
of clay, sand and fine stone.

I'm not sure whether this is that
much more labour-intensive than,

say, if we had set up shuttering
and poured and cast concrete.

It is certainly a lot more fun.

Fun is something that Lammas does
very well and it looks like

I've arrived at just about
the right time to join in.

How long to fill a bag
with three people?

Just a bit over a minute, I think.

Well, that's good going.

I'm very impressed
with the technique.

Because it delivers a very
uniform building material,

therefore it has a dimensional
stability about the bag

when it's tamped, it's uniform,

it becomes a really usable building
material at that point, doesn't it?

Yes. That has a structural capacity

of a lightweight
concrete block. Yes.

You were born to this, Mika.
I'm destined for greater things!

I'm sure you are.

Simon's inventiveness is
exactly what's bringing

a steady stream of volunteers
to Lammas.

You have to forgive me
for my scepticism,

because I've never persuaded
anybody to come and work for me

for free on a building site and
I'm wondering how to do it.

I'm wondering how Simon does it.

You have to give a lot of fun,
you have to give good food,

nice spot to camp on,
all these facilities.

I've been doing it wrong, obviously.

And did you bring any skills with
you? I mean, are you a carpenter?

I'm a cabinet-maker. Oh, right.

I've been on a journey
like this for a few years.

The materials for the volunteers
to work with have been supplied

by Simon and Jasmine, from their
very own personal scrapheap.

There's lots of recycled
stuff here. Yes.

A handrail, very useful. Very
useful. Part of a cattle stall.

Very useful for something, don't
quite know what yet. A handrail.

And a greenhouse.

Lots of greenhouses.
Three all together here.

Barbed wire. Doors. Sinks.
Lots of them. Pallet.

There is something, of course, in
the scale of this project.

Architecturally, it's ambitious.
Structurally, it's ambitious.

And there must be points
where you think,

"Actually, we're tipping
over an edge here.

"There are going to be some clashes
between our environmental objectives

"and actually just our desire to
make something really beautiful."

Sometimes, when I look at the plans
for this building and the designs

we've got and the materials
we've got here,

these shabby, old, rusty greenhouses
which are going to go on the front,

and, yeah, I do have occasional
moments where I think,

"This could look terrible.

"It could look really bad."

HE LAUGHS

By any objective standard. Yes!

If Simon's worried about what
the house will look like, I'm not.

I have faith in his skill,
craftsmanship and inventiveness.

But his speed isn't
maybe so impressive.

Nothing happens in a hurry here

and it takes three months to
complete the retaining wall.

Simon is nothing if not optimistic.

He wants his family in
by next winter.

In ambitious Simon world,
then, come next winter,

2014-15, then we'd have a space
we could use to some extent.

I don't imagine it being
totally finished at all,

but a space which we'd be using
to take the pressure off

our current living space.

The second winter of their project
is on the horizon

and most of the
volunteers drift away.

But the building work has dominated
the summer and left Jasmine

little time for her smallholding.

Those last October days of sun
you've got a real sense

that you have to finish things off.

You're losing the light
from four o'clock onwards.

November here is usually, can be 50,
60 miles per hour winds

and very rainy,
so there's all sorts of stuff

that doesn't happen once
November comes.

And, as they face this winter,
they have just 15 months left

to prove that this land can provide
them with 75% of their basic needs.

I am starting to feel it, a real
reality that my small businesses

is only just a fledgling, really.

We didn't really try
and grow any food this year.

We just did small things,
easy things.

And next year, I'd be aiming
to do all my own veg

and my plant-selling
business has to go up a notch.

What's clear is that while Jasmine
and Simon have been concentrating on

their house, their smallholding
business has taken a back-seat.

Finding enough time for both

is a challenge for everyone
here at Lammas.

I know what you're thinking.

That's going to be
a really nice house, isn't it?

Except, it's not a house.
It's a workshop.

And a store and it's part of this
business, the polytunnel,

run by this family on this piece
of land and that's where they live.

Look, there. I mean, where's the
architecture, where's the home?

That's the problem here.

There are nine households
and no-one yet

has finished the house that
they're meant to be building.

You know, that land-based
living thing, it's very exciting

and there's a chance of it really
working here. That's one thing.

Self-build on a location like this,
community self-build,

whatever you call it,
that's another.

Trying to mix the two together
in a five-year period

seems to me to be just crazy.
They are being asked too much.

So what are Simon
and Jasmine's chances?

I mean, I think they're
going to kill themselves.

Simon and Jasmine aren't blind
to this Everest of challenges.

They are forced to face facts
and they make the significant

decision to put building
the house on hold

so they can fully concentrate
on the business.

And for the business to really take
off, they need the greenhouses.

The planning targets are, yes,
they are dictating to us,

they are controlling
what we do in what order.

It can be a bit frustrating,
and worrying, at times,

but essentially it reinforces
the idea that we're going to put

this food production in the
greenhouse before our comfort

and space of having
the extra rooms to live in.

For seven months, Simon devotes
himself to the greenhouses

and by spring,
they're nearly complete.

But at the expense
of the family home.

And Jasmine is beginning to feel

she's approaching
the end of her tether.

I've started to get tired, now, yes.

I always used to stay up
to 1am or 3am in the morning

and be doing projects all night

and now at 9pm in the evening,
I just want... I'm over.

After dinner and washing up,

I just want to go to bed and my
friends do say that it's because

we've been continually

in a project-building phase
for ten years.

Predating Lammas, we've been
doing very similar stuff

since we first married
and since we had children.

I can see how easy it would be
to give up and leave this

alternative life behind.

But Simon and Jasmine...
are deep green to the core.

It's two years since I first met
Simon and Jasmine.

I've seen them fight for the right
to stay on their seven acres

and never more so
than in these last months.

Jasmine has dug deep into
her considerable reserves

and pulled herself
through her dark period.

The Lammas community
spirit returns.

I keep looking at the picture of
the field five years ago,

with no structures,
no plants, bare-grazed field,

there has been quite
a lot of hard graft.

I still think it's more
nourishing for me

than the other type of hard work
I used to do,

before I had my own land

and I'm doing my best to have
some sense of achievement.

And so she should.

All her efforts on the plot

have meant Simon can at last
get back to the house.

The timber frame on the top
floor is his priority.

This is where the children's
bedrooms will be.

We've been back on this
for nearly a month now,

after finishing
with the greenhouses.

It's a really fun bit to do.

We have all these curvy
bits and the arches.

It's area where we are
using smaller bits of wood,

so they are quite easy to handle
and move and lift and it's

really starting to take shape.
Which is beautiful.

This kind of construction
is painstaking and slow.

And by the end of the building
season, when the volunteers

begin to drift away again, there are
only the bare bones of a top floor.

And, despite Jasmine's efforts
in food production,

I wonder if it is all
too little, too late.

As another winter slips by,

the self-sufficiency deadline
is just months away.

Simon and Jasmine's greenhouse
gamble has paid off.

Mother Nature has returned the
considerable efforts that Jasmine

has put in over the
past year - with interest.

We are in such an early stage,
the yields...

Like, I've grown all these tomatoes
but I was just giving them away.

I sold some, we ate three kilos
a day for four weeks or something.

It's just as well they've had
such bumper crops

because they have to submit their
final year's figures

to the council.
If they reach 75% self-sufficiency

they will be able to stay
on their land.

It is make or break, so they spend
their evenings number crunching.

OK, so if you keep a tally.
Yeah, yeah, 98 cucumbers in July.

'What we've been doing now is
putting a value onto not only what'

we sold but what we ate ourselves
and then we combine those

two figures and that's what
we've produced.

The good weather means Simon can
pull out the construction stops

to get the bedrooms on the top
floor ready for Cosmo and Elfie.

You set a goal - "Let's get these
kids' rooms together,

"get this really good." We are gonna
try and make sure that this is

in a shape that they can get into
it in the autumn.

And he might just do it. He's
already achieved an extraordinary

amount. There are floors,
a roof, insulation,

even a reclaimed roof light in
place. At last, Elfie and Cosmo can

understand what their new
bedrooms will be like.

So, this is your one here, isn't it?

I kind of imagine it, like,
going out a bit and then it being

kind of rounded but then
spacious and cuddled up

at the same time.
What do you reckon of your space?

OK, it's gonna be covered here...

We have come to this point by
following our hearts,

by following what is bringing
joy into our lives

and that's been our navigation
system to get here.

There's gonna be
a little bench just here,

so this is where I'm gonna put my
Lego and build my stuff.

What we need to do to, what
we're doing is

what is right for us,
what is right for our natures

and to whatever extent that is good
for the bigger, out there, nature

is not surprising.
Cos they are one and the same.

Are you excited about it? Yeah.
Yeah?

OK, well hopefully it won't
take for ever and

we'll get there before you
leave home!

LAUGHTER

It's something of a delight to
come back here on what's

become something of an annual
pilgrimage to see...

..a house going up.
That's progress, eh? We measure

the progress of construction,
of buildings, like we do ourselves,

in years. But this project is
so slow, it's so back-burner...

You could almost measure it
in decades.

Ah-ha! Hi. How are you?
I'm very well, how are you?

Yeah...

'But I'll never tire of watching
Simon work with his home-grown
timber.'

So this post goes where?
This post is going down the far end,

the other end of our bedroom. OK...

These are for braces?
These are for braces,

so the post's gonna go vertical and
then we are going to have two

beams coming in, one through into
a mortise here... Yes.

And one into another mortise...
You enjoy doing this?

..Just here. It's lovely work,
isn't it? I'm intrigued

cos with round pole timber,
you can't work on the flat bench

cos it rolls around.
So, sensibly two horses and...

Ratchet straps. Two ratchet straps
make all the difference.

Ratchet straps for everything and
string lines down the middle to...

Imagine a straight line through the
centre and then, if you like,

you can pretend that there is
a square in there. Yeah.

There's one, there's the same
surface, level and in line

with each other. Yeah...

Over the last two and a half years,
Simon and Jasmine have

earned some hard cash...

The relationships between each
element could be just as important,

if not more,
as the elements themselves.

Jasmine is running horticultural
courses and selling produce.

And Simon does occasional
consultancy work on

low-impact building.

They have added to the 500 quid they
had in the bank when I first

met them and they've spent
it on the house.

So how is the cash situation?
Cash situation is all right.

We've already...um, spent...out on
a few things, where we said,

"Right, this is gonna make it really
good if we spend on this."

So we've put in this black sheet
here, which is a damp-proof sheet.

It's a liner, rubber,
really good quality...

Rubber, super-stretchy, can't
puncture it easily, lasts forever.

Yeah. One sheet goes over the
whole building...

About ?2,500. We've got a very good
quality, breathable membrane

over the top,
which has cost us about ?700.

And the other thing that it's about,
apart from keeping water out -

the other reason why we're making
a house is to keep warm.

So, sheep's wool insulation...
How much has that cost you?

What we've put in so far
has cost us something like ?2,000.

So, altogether... Approaching
?5,000. About ?5,000, 5,500...

That's modest.

But this has never been only
about the cash -

it's about proving their ability to
become self-sufficient.

And they have reached their
deadline.

Have you submitted the information
back to the Welsh Assembly?

To the local authority,
to Pembrokeshire County Council.

But... Who adjudicate us.

According to what?
One-planet-living principles?

There's never been any clear
guidance.

I can't believe the local authority
have got any expertise within it.

They've never...professed to
have the expertise

to even judge the initial
planning application.

Cos in a way there's a bit of
a knife edge, isn't there?

Are we going to be able to keep our
homes and our livelihoods?

Rather than lose all this. Yeah.

While the authorities plough through
the mountains of calculations

the Lammas residents have put
together, Simon can give his

undivided attention to the house.

And Jasmine can take me on a trip!

You forget when you are at Lammas
that there is an outside world.

We are going to pick up some
recycled polystyrene granules.

We're gonna use it for
underfloor insulation.

And this is a guy who's got an
appliances' business?

That's right. And all the
packaging he's left with...

Round here it's landfilled.
So, cos they pay per volume,

he invested in a machine that
actually breaks it done back into

its granules. Seriously? Yeah...

So you buy granulated
polystyrene ready to use?

Well, we don't even need to buy it,
he gives it to us.

Astonishing. Yeah. That's good,
that's the circular economy at work.

SAT NAV: In 300 yards you have
reached your destination.

So you take all the packaging that
these appliances come in -

this stuff...? Yeah.

And then granulate it into that?

And all this polystyrene...

You are going to use to
insulate your floor?

That's right but it's not through
stinginess,

it's actually genuinely through...

We would just only use
something that's...

A non-natural item if it was
otherwise going to landfill

or was a waste. So,
when we came across the granulator,

the king of granulation,
then it's a godsend.

Come on, let's fire it up. Yeah.

MACHINE CLANKS

Oh, man, this will do it!
There you go. It sounds evil!

Oh, that looks really
vicious in there.

Back on site, there's a flurry of
activity.

The straw bale walls are going up,

promising a proper bedroom for
Elfie. Snip.

She's now ten years old.

I'm trimming the wall.

So it's easier to put the lime on.

Grandma and Grandad took us to
IKEA the other day

so we could see ideas for, like,
the bedroom plans and stuff.

So I've kind of got, like, tonnes of
ideas now.

Just as speed picks up on the house,

winter descends on Lammas,

bringing an unprecedented 85
consecutive days of rain.

Depressing and difficult anywhere,

but here on an exposed hillside
it's surely hell.

So building stops for
another four months.

By the spring, the family have
reverted to survival mode.

I had, like, a micro tiredness,
exhaustion,

sort of like a mini-breakdown.

And then I would say at the end of
October it more hit Simon in

extreme tiredness, which showed up
as illness.

When I make my annual pilgrimage,
my fifth summer here,

I discover that Simon's been
making up for lost time.

So now you've got this first
floor glazed... Yeah.

You can plumb it now. Yeah.

There's water pipe here.

Yeah, without waste and water and
all the services,

the house is a sort of husk,
isn't it?

It's a shell.
It doesn't function. Yeah.

'Remarkably, Simon is still

'undaunted by the volume of work
left to do.

'He keeps chipping away,

'tackling next the services to the
bathroom and loo.'

So this is what room?

This is going to be the bathroom.

This section... The family bathroom?
This is for everyone, yeah?

Family bathroom. So we're doing
a water flushing toilet here.

Conventional toilet on this end.
Very sophisticated.

Going down into the greenhouse and
down there we've got

a separator, which will separate the
solids and the liquids.

The separator isn't installed yet,
but it's a very simple technology.

Right, so...

Here... Oh, yeah, if you look here,
look. You see these two pipes?

Coming out of the wall here.

That one is for brown waste - poo
from the toilet.

That one is grey water waste from
just the washing and the bath,

the grey water water.

That goes straight into the
greenhouse just here and that

is feeding the plants directly.

The brown water comes into
a big tank with

a centrifuge in it and that
collects the solids.

The run off from that goes down,

bypasses here and goes into a reed
bed down the hill and the poo

is then dried out, composted,
and turned into...

Look at this.

Organic compost.

Now, you might have an aversion to
handling your own composted poo,

but listen.

Compared to the bags of compost you
can buy in the shops,

this stuff is better for you,
more organic, and it is...

..sweeter smelling.

It's exactly this kind of low-impact
tech and how it's used that

keeps the steady flow of
volunteers coming

to work alongside Jasmine and
Simon and learn.

So far, there have been an
eye-watering 277 volunteers,

who clearly get a lot from being
here.

For me, it's a very beautiful
experience.

Jasmine's recycled polystyrene is
being used in the rammed

earth floor of her bedroom.

It's been sandwiched between
a waterproof membrane and

layers of cob and - this is
a surprise - underfloor heating,

powered from their wood burner.

You know, here we've got a whole
system.

It's using rubbish and material from
here, with the exception of a 60

quid roll of pipe, to heat the room.

Everything else is completely free.

What more could I ask -
could any of us ask -

than this house should be properly
low impact?

But that it should also have
ambition to be

properly 21st century in its
comforts.

Now, that's an achievement.

And is there another on the horizon?

Did the Lammas families meet their
self-sufficiency target

within five years?

Will they be allowed to stay?

This is one of those
parts of the world

which is surprisingly, astonishingly
beautiful when you get there.

It is worth making the pilgrimage
here every time.

And now I can see that
the Lammas community has been busy.

The bare pasture land is now filling
up with some nearly built houses

and thriving smallholdings.

Oh, pigs!

There's productivity.

Simon and Jasmine chose this
plum site at the top of the hill.

It does take some getting to!

Well, now.

I've been walking down this path
for four years now, on and off.

Interesting to see what Simon
has got waiting for me.

For the first time, the epic scale
and wonderful organic shape

of Simon and Jasmine's new home
can assert themselves.

And on the upper floor, there are
rather exciting signs of completion.

Ah, proper path to your front door.

How remarkable!

How are you? Hello, Jasmine.
Good, thank you. Hello.

Good to see you both,

and good to see a building
which, do you know,

has a front door
and has windows and is rendered.

Yes. At least this bit.
Yeah, this bit. Yeah.

And the turf roof has been on for
a while to establish itself. Yeah.

It looks fantastic.

You said...
this was going to be medium hobbity.

Medium hobbity.

I think this is a bit more kind of
medium to full strength. OK!

The window's quite full strength.
Yeah, yeah.

Very pretty. It's very beautiful.
Made from your timber?

Timber from the woodland, yeah.
Harvested five years ago.

Planked, stacked,
dried for two years.

I mean, how exciting

to be able to make
everything you need so beautifully.

Can I come in through
your front door? Of course.

This is...

This is remarkable.
Part finished, but remarkable.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but the last time
I saw this, a few weeks ago,

it was a building site.

Look at it now.
I don't remember the glazing.

In the long-term, it will be
all sculpted in and everything,

like the front window, but
at the moment, that's how it sits.

It's pretty cool at the moment.

This open hallway
is noble and usable.

A long gallery,
a shared space for Elfie and Cosmo,

whose bedrooms are tucked behind
these chunky cob walls.

Shoes off for the bedrooms, yeah?
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ohhh!

What a charming, charming room.

So, this is how
that's all going to look

when it's all plastered, painted,

and all the rafters
are then infilled?

Yeah. It's exquisite.

This is what I've been waiting for.

The true Simon experience,

a combination of the exposed round
wood frame and lime plaster walls

covering the rough straw bales
in a smooth sweep,

hand-crafted and cuddled up,
just as Elfie wanted.

The floor is super-smooth.

Earth, linseed oil, beeswax.

Did you mix it with straw
to bind it?

A little bit of sand,
a little bit of straw.

Linseed oil over the top,
four layers of that,

with a bit of citrus terpene
to thin it.

So you've made your own linoleum.
Same sort of effect.

You've got your own lino. Yeah.

And, do you know,
it actually feels like lino.

Whaay! It's really
beautifully smooth. Yeah.

Cosmo's directly next door,
yeah? Yeah.

Tucked next door, in the centre
of the house, is the second bedroom.

This is a bit more hi-tech.

This is the tech room.
This is Cosmo's room here.

Mixture of, you know, screens,
cameras, keyboards. Yeah.

This room is proof,
if ever it when needed,

that low-impact
doesn't have to mean low-tech.

And a massive collection of Lego.
Yeah.

Wow! That's epic. Mm-hm.

This is an architect in the making,
isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah, well,
he's got some good making skills.

Just like his dad.

Did I ever think this house
would or could look like this?

I'm not sure I ever lost faith,

but I wouldn't have blamed
Simon and Jasmine if they had.

They are heroes
of the true self-build community.

Ooh! The observatory!

Yeah, yeah. Wonderful, isn't it,
open like this?

This end of the house
will be Simon and Jasmine's bedroom,

with a sensational view.

I mean, it's presumably not going to
be glazed in its entirety, is it?

Not in its entirety,
but that bit there.

The bit that looks at the view is.
Wow, wow, wow.

I mean, you've just got the wall
to do here, haven't you? Yes, yes.

Straw bales round the back and glass
round that section on the front.

So when, then, will all this
then become a habitable room?

I think
we're actually at a point now

that we have to ask ourselves
questions

about what we want to do next.

Do we want to jump into
our new room for the winter

or do we want to
actually do some other things

and stay where we are
for the winter?

Well, I know what I'd do.
What would you do?

I would move in.
You would find it energising... Ah!

..to wake up here in the morning,
look out over that landscape,

have the kids next door, have
that indoor bathroom in the winter.

The last thing I'd do
is put pressure on,

but personally,
I'd just be a bit tempted.

That sounds good.

If I'm right, Simon and Jasmine
will get their own bedroom finished

before this winter's over,

and the living spaces
and kitchen downstairs

will have to wait till next year.

Or the year after.

But it mustn't be forgotten

why Simon and Jasmine have
only got a half-finished house.

Failure to meet the five-year target
of self-sufficiency on their land

has always meant, for everyone
at Lammas, the threat of eviction.

But now I have
some very good news indeed.

Their homes are safe.

They have reached
their five-year target, these guys.

They've achieved 75% sustainability,

and that's a fantastic
landmark point to have arrived at.

So, to mark
this heroic achievement, a party.

It's so tantalisingly fantastic,

and it's been tantalisingly
fantastic for the past six years.

As a fan of the Lammas project,
I'm lucky enough to join them

to celebrate this milestone
in low-impact living.

This is about...

what my mind and the human mind,
I think, and the human body can do.

There's relief and happiness
in the air.

Of all the people
who've come to Lammas

and all the peripheral
projects around,

nobody's gone back
to the mainstream lifestyle. Yeah.

And there's much to celebrate

about Simon and Jasmine's house
as well.

It has so many qualities,
not least its integrity.

All the timber
sourced from this plot of land,

with almost exclusively
recycled materials

and fully renewable power sources.

It hasn't
and won't destroy the planet,

but it hasn't cost the earth.

You started out, you thought, with
about 500 quid in the bank. Yeah.

Yeah,
and a few more bits along the way.

Borrowed a teeny bit

and we've spent something
like ?25,000, ?30,000 so far.

I think 27 at the moment.
27 over four years. Yeah.

Which is the cheapest house ever
built in the western hemisphere. OK!

And of the 27... Yes?

..how much of it, as it were,
is tangible in the building,

and how much of it has gone on stuff
like food for all those workers,

all those volunteers?

Yeah, I think those are really
more like the core building costs

and maybe...
probably about five grand

has gone on food for all the people
that have helped.

Cos we have to calculate
the retail value of all the veg,

about ?5,000 to ?6,000 worth
of vegetables

has gone to them over the years.

A great way to measure the budget
of your house, though, isn't it?

?5,000 worth of vegetables
have gone into this house. Yeah.

To have witnessed Simon and Jasmine

build this extraordinary house
in such a novel way

makes me proud to know them.

How do you measure the success
of this entire project?

I don't think I can quantify it
and break it down,

but I can feel it in my heart
every day

when I walk round
at the end of the day

and I can see the bats flying round
or hear the birds singing still,

you know, and just look at it.

Yeah. Yeah!

Yeah! It makes me go, "Yeah!
This is good! This is really great."

How do you measure it?

He talked, actually, in very
emotional terms, Simon, about it.

Well, I think for me, personally,
yeah, this whole...

Yeah, as the trees grow up...

We've been on the roof a lot
this week, and I'm just like,

"Yes, it is repaired,"
or whatever it is,

you know, those words you use
about landscape.

It feels good? Yeah.

It's a great feeling. Yeah.
That's a good thing.

Yeah, it's been hard work, and
I wasn't asking for an easy life.

You know, I want challenge.

There's something nice
about a hard day's graft,

you get to the end of the day
and you're tired,

and that exhaustion
is a nice feeling.

I think that's part of being human,

to have a little bit of challenge
and a little bit of struggle

and come through it, especially
when we come through it together.

It's a great privilege to share the
journeys that self-builders go on,

and here more than most.

Over the years, I've watched
the children grow into young adults,

seen the lowest of low-impact houses
rise out of the hills

and seen the land
give up its bounty,

helping this family
become self-sufficient.

HE SIGHS

So it doesn't matter one jot,
does it,

that this house isn't finished?

Because the wider scheme
is such a resounding success.

Having started life as this
abstract government initiative

and then having grown into something
which was a social project

determined by statistics
and percentages,

it only really took off thanks to
the imagination, the energy,

of people like Simon and Jasmine.

So what is it to you and me?

Well, it's not just an example
of how we could and should live.

This is a clarion call.

The beautiful compound curve
of the ploughshare,

I mean, that is a shape you do not
often see in architecture.

We came up with this idea
of these two swooping roofs.

Building a house, changing
your life, running the courses,

all that is huge.

Most ones we do are fairly square
and symmetrical.

This is a little bit more tricky.

Standing here,
it looks like some mud hut in Benin.

I'll tell you who's going to
have to be the voice of scepticism.

That's me.