This is every builders dream, renovate a castle, and take it from boulders to banquettes. If they didn’t have to work for a living, our master craftsmen would work for nothing on this project. And we feel the same, it truly is an honour to be working on such an amazing refurb. We have worked for the owner on other projects and we delighted when we were asked to do this one.

The actuality of the build meant a lot of thought had to go into every aspect of it. How do you get a 30ft dining table in the main hall? Illuminate a spiral staircase? Electrify without chasing or ducting? Where we could we embraced new technology (once you couldn’t see it) such as preformed, reinforced fibre glassing. Where we couldn’t we reverted to jowls, dado joints and buttresses.

The castle height was eight scaffolding bays high and everything had to be imported through the roof. So we had to finish before we started. From a scheduling point of view, we had to pick the finishing point, work backwards to a point, then work forward to the same point and make sure they meet. Then schedule and store the materials inside. Such as the timber for the dining table…