Incredible £5 Million Restoration of a Medieval Tudor Manor House _ Our History

It's spring and at Calverley Old Hall the renovation team have started stripping the building back to its medieval origins and already they found something extraordinary in one of the upstairs rooms. When the Landmark Trust first acquired the building this was an unremarkable bedroom but behind these walls is something much older. This is the original plaster here but it still has traces of early paint on it. Anna Kay, the Landmark Trust boss, has raced up to Yorkshire to see for herself. We have found something amazing here at Calverley which is a small surviving area of 16th century wall painting, Tudor wall painting, and today the team from Lincoln Conservation are opening up the rest of the room to see if there's any more of it and I'm sort of tingling with thought that we might have a whole room of wall paintings but we may only have one or two patches so I'm waiting to find out. Hello, hello, hello. Hiya. Oh my goodness, you've got something there, haven't you? It's all there. And in here. Oh yes, look, there's something quite elaborate going on there, isn't there? This floor was put in mid-16th century, wasn't it? Yes, yes, yes. So is there isn't anything yet that shows us whether this just respects them as it were a first floor room? There is, there is in there. You want to go and look in there? Oh no, not really, it sounds quite boring. Ah, look at it. Oh my goodness, I'm going to burst into tears, look at it. Oh, oh that leaves me completely speechless. The builders have revealed a whole wall full of ancient paintings. The early signs suggest they could be as much as 500 years old, dating back to Elizabeth I or even her father, Henry VIII. Covered up with layers of plaster and wallpaper, this is the first time they've been seen for a hundred years or more. It's a remarkable discovery. It's the Renaissance, isn't it? Here it is, the Yorkshire Renaissance. It's fabulous. You don't often get the opportunity to uncover something like this, possibly even a once-in-a-lifetime. I was going to say, that's the thing, isn't it? It is a once-in-a-lifetime thing to find. It is so wonderful, it's quite emotional. Absolutely nothing could have prepared me for this. I just, I knew that we'd found wall paintings, I'd seen some little patches, I thought we might have some slightly bigger patches and just walking in here and seeing this, I mean, it's just completely breathtaking. To find this, this whole scheme from floor to ceiling, wall upon wall, all complete, it's like you've suddenly been dropped into a great pool of history and it's just all around you. And I don't think in my whole working life with historic buildings of whatever it's been, 25 years, I've ever been party to a discovery like this on this scale and of this splendour. It's just, just incredible. The extraordinary painted room is tucked away in the lodging block of Calverley Old Hall. Having been added to over several hundred years, the layout of the building can be a bit confusing. It's a bit of a mishmash on the outside. It is essentially a medieval manor house that was built over a series of centuries and a series of blocks. So the far right-hand block with the sloping roof facing us was the Great Hall built in the 15th century. Then next to it with the window on the first floor and the gable end facing us was the solar block, so a sort of withdrawing area. Then there's a little chapel with the windows with medieval detailing and then the lodging block that lies behind. The big change here came in the 17th and 18th centuries when what had been one single big manor house occupied by a single family was divided up into a whole series, nine separate little houses, each one of which was served by its own front door. This irregular shaped building carved up into multiple individual cottages feels nothing like a single grand mansion. But this was once a group of much bigger spaces. A solar block, the Great Hall, a chapel, parlour block and lodging block. Seen like this, Calverley's medieval origins start to emerge. The 500-year-old Great Hall was once the grandest room of all. So this is the interior of the Great Hall and as you can see it's a bit of a mishmash inside and the reason for this is that the hall was divided up in the period after the Calverley family stopped living here into three separate dwellings. The remains of old walls will be removed and the one surviving wall reduced in height so that the whole of the ceiling will be visible from what will become a massive kitchen and dining area. Of course one of the absolute highlights of this whole place is the roof of the Great Hall which you can see above us here. It's an utterly spectacular medieval timber roof. So our plan here is as you stand at this end of the building which is where our kitchen area is going to be and I see myself here chopping the onions and you'll get a wonderful view up over the wall to the full length of the hall and the rest of this roof which I think will be really spectacular. At the heart of Calverley Old Hall is the oldest part of the building. Dating back 600 years to the time of the Black Death, this space was known as the solar. It's the place where the Calverley family would have gone for some private time. As originally built it had a floor going right the way across dividing this into two levels two stories and it's got its original 14th century fireplace but when the floor was originally in there on the first floor you would have had the room known as the solar which was the kind of premier reception room of a medieval manor house. The ground floor of this space would originally have been the kitchen area but the Landmark Trust renovation plans will see it turned into bedrooms and bathrooms. And the plan is on the first floor is to once again have a spectacular great big single chamber and have a fire crackling in that great fireplace again. It's an enormous task that will involve stripping the entire building back to the bare walls before renovating it for modern day use. Anna's joining buildings archaeologist Jonathan Clark to explore the last surviving cottage that was inserted into one end of the Great Hall. Lovely wallpaper. It's gorgeous isn't it? The huge beam running across the wallpapered modern bedroom is the only sign that this was once part of the roof space of a grand medieval house. So that's the other other end of the sphere truss yeah. We've got pretty complete survival of the 1980s. It's wonderful really because it's a sort of tangible piece of evidence for the fact that this place has been continuously occupied for five six hundred years. It's amazing isn't it? It's been a roller coaster of a day and the discovery of the Tudor wall paintings has made Anna and the team even more committed to restore and protect this remarkable Yorkshire building. It's an amazing thing that Calverley Old Hall is still standing. A building from the middle ages that's been adapted and knocked around so much that setting has changed completely and you know the housing has come really close to it. It's great rolling acres are all no longer but the building is here and the opportunity is now there to give it a completely new use back together again as a sort of single entity which feels like a brilliant thing to be able to do. It's almost a year since work began at Calverley Old Hall in West Yorkshire. Lovely weather. It is luckily the scaffolding is holding up. After disruptions due to Covid a huge roof scaffold has been put up to protect the whole building not least the priceless wall paintings. Anna's here with the Landmark Trust property surveyor Linda Lockett. It's an absolutely massive structure this scaffold. They've done repairs to this part of the roof and they're re-slating with the original slate. Well stone tiles isn't it? It is. They're wonderful great big slabs. These tiles come from the exact same quarry as the originals which was once owned by the Calverley family. It's vitally important to make repairs to the roof to safeguard the interior of this precious building. We've got a room full of 16th century valuable wall paintings and we're stripping the roof off. We've got to protect it. Working in the roof space Michael Bloom is one of the craftsmen trying to preserve the old beams but the sheer age of the timbers is proving a challenge. This is a significant structural timber of this timber frame isn't it that's completely been eaten away. This is in quite that order now but when you consider how long it's been here for yeah it's fantastic really isn't it? It's still there. It's all it is it's hanging on despite the fact that it looks like an arrow it's been so half eaten arrow that you're being able to retain that middle section so we aren't completely losing the medieval fabric. It's the biggest bit of woodworm I've ever seen anyway. Hidden in the old roof timbers Michael has unearthed a whole range of ancient artefacts from Calverley's past. Look at that yeah little tiny tiny shoe yeah we found a few shoes now but they're fantastic. Because you obviously do get these shoes put into buildings don't you as a kind of little. I have heard that they put them in the walls and but the the fact that we've got a good look and again horseshoes as well. This is like Michael's museum here. As Anna drops down to the painted chamber it's the moment of truth. Right so you can see here. It's a relief to see the paintings completely covered with perspex sheeting with special monitors in place to measure temperature and humidity. It's really nice to know that they're safe because we've got all this stuff going on great big piles of scaffolding and blokes carrying huge bits of timber and you just knowing that they're safe from being bashed or knocked. A few months later and the word is out about Calverley's recently discovered wall paintings. The curators at Westminster Abbey have got in touch with news of something they're anxious for the team to see. So Anna and the Landmark Trust historian Caroline Stanford have come to London to see Westminster curator Dr Susan Jenkins. Hi, hi, lovely to see you. Hi Susan. Look at these. Aren't they amazing? These wall paintings date from about 1550. Almost exactly the same date as Calverley's and like Calverley's paintings for some reason they were boarded over and forgotten for centuries. They weren't discovered until the 1880s and there was a restoration program then which has probably changed some of them quite a bit. At the far end you can see that figure who is absolutely with the head up at the top exactly and there's another bit of his head on the other side so he wouldn't have been divided up like that. The big question for the Landmark Trust is whether to restore the Calverley paintings as the Victorians did here at Westminster or to preserve them as they are. Do you have an instinct that you will leave what you find rather than paint in? You know where you've got a sort of tongue like that and you've got that bit and you've got that bit and the lines between them are missing there might be an argument for doing some kind of light indication of the missing bits so that you have the pattern as a whole. Well I'm sure you won't make the mistake that we made in the 1880s of repainting you know huge swathes of them. I mean it's kept them here but then you wonder what's original and what's not. While the Landmark team ponder how best to protect their 450 year old interior wall paintings, back at Calverley the scaffold is down and the focus is on the outside of the building. These old stones have been battered and bruised by time and the Yorkshire weather. Master mason Kevin Woods is part of the team charged with stripping back the building to its bare bones. The stone's gone really really soft and with freezing thaw it's gone really soft there's no strength to it anymore so what we're doing is gently taking the pointing out which traps the water in the wall and it speeds this decay up so we're going to carefully take these out and replace them with some stone from site. So we're only piecing in what we have to piece in and then we keep the history of the building. Calverley Old Hall has been much altered over many centuries by several generations of the rich and landed Calverley family but in one critical episode almost 500 years ago the family nearly met its downfall when one of the Calverleys came up against the most powerful man in the land the tyrannical Henry VIII. When Henry divorced his first wife Catherine of Aragon not only did he split England from the Church of Rome he created deep resentment with some staunchly Catholic families. After an uprising by northern Catholic noblemen the king arrested the ringleaders and slammed them in the Tower of London. Among them was 28 year old William Calverley owner of Calverley Hall. Terrified of losing his land his house his fortune maybe even his life he decided his only way out was to write the king a poem. A facsimile of that poem from around 1536 survives. And it's called a dialogue between the plaintiff and the defendant compiled by William Calverley whilst he was prisoner in the Tower of London. What Calverley writes is effectively a letter begging the king for his life. And you can get the tone of it from the very first lines oh excellent prince of my life chief patron medicine to sick men in their great distress and so on and so on. It's a massive suck up. It's a massive suck up and what's extraordinary is that Henry fell for it. William Calverley was not only released from the Tower but before long he went on to become a sheriff and was even knighted. The old hall was safely back in the family. The magnificent wall paintings are now believed to have been commissioned about 15 years after William Calverley's release. But within just a hundred years the medieval manor house was already being divided up into smaller dwellings. As the renovation team strips back the building still further it continues to produce surprises with clues to the building's history. Anna has come to meet building's archaeologist Jonathan Clark starting in the end of the great hall that was once the wallpapered cottage. Hi Jonathan. Oh hi there. How are you doing? Well it looks rather different doesn't it? What a change. When I was last here well there was still a floor at that level. We had a dividing wall. Now that's gone we can see the fireplace in all its glory. Look at that great chimney breast there. This is probably the 17th century. This fireplace built into a partition wall just a hundred years after William Calverley's release from the Tower of London is clear evidence that the house's days as the Calverley family mansion were numbered. Above us is the amazing roof of the great hall as it was in the middle ages in its heyday but this is the first time that I've seen the whole thing revealed so it's really exciting and I tell you what makes me feel really thrilled is we're putting a big staircase in here aren't we? But I didn't think I really realized until standing here now just how big and monumental and handsome that's going to be. When the building project is complete this space will have the main entrance into a hallway with a grand staircase running up to the first floor. The main area to the right will become a massive 40 foot high kitchen and dining room. Oh it's so great being able to be in the big single volume in here now isn't it? It's amazing isn't it? Digging under the floor level in the great hall Jonathan has made some surprising finds in here too. The remains of ash pits beneath the existing floor level. So it looks as though there was some sort of industrial activity taking place at this end of the hall so that's pre-18th century. Yeah. So it could be agricultural activity it could be drying grain that sort of thing or maybe malting. Malting is the preparation of barley for brewing beer or vinegar so stripping back the great hall has uncovered yet another cavalry surprise. Just a hundred years after its high point at least part of the building has become a sort of workshop. There's more to come in the painted room as well. But look at this look at this. Astonishing isn't it? When Anna first came here the painted room just had a dusty old pine floor but underneath are some extremely old floorboards made of solid oak. It's completely perfect it's absolutely perfect. I mean this even reflects hundreds of years of use and wear. You can see these undulations here. I guess it would have been. Something's been going on here for a very prolonged period of time. I wonder if there's a working frame or something here or maybe something weaving something like that. Yeah. So how old do you think this floor is? Well I think it's contemporary with the painted scheme in here. So it's a Tudor floor? It's a Tudor yeah yeah. A rediscovered and totally intact original oak floor to go with the 450 year old wall paintings. We had been borrowed upon this project before we had even the slightest inkling such a incredible survival was here and and you know it just keeps on coming doesn't it? The unearthing of yet more of Calverley's hidden past is a reminder of just how precious this building is. Doing these projects is a bit like having an amazing dream and then it's somehow becoming reality. The real excitement is not just that of looking after the building and really carefully repairing historic features but it's also giving it this new chapter and the new staircase that's going to go in the end of the great hall is going to be really really exciting and actually today for the first time I really had a sense of what that might be like sweeping up into the medieval roof space. It gives this project a whole other dimension which is quite unusual quite unusual for us and quite new for me so really excited. When the Landmark Trust bought Calverley Old Hall 40 years ago it was divided into nine separate dwellings. The building has now been largely stripped back to its medieval and Tudor origins with the massive great hall, the comfortable family spaces of the central solar block, the chapel and the neighboring parlor and lodging blocks. When it's finally restored the great hall will be a huge double height kitchen and dining area. The solar block will be bedrooms on the ground floor and a massive sitting room on the first leading to the amazing painted bedroom. It's a massive three-year project expected to cost five million pounds raised from grants and public donations. It's now two years since this historic restoration project began. A big moment for Calverley. Three years ago the central solar block was a huge empty space hard to visualize as separate upstairs and downstairs rooms but today Anna and John Evitz the Landmark Trust's furniture expert will stand on the new floor as intended when it was built 600 years ago. So here it is. I mean it is amazing seeing it full space now isn't it? All I'd ever seen was this space up in the air somewhere and it was very difficult to imagine. Now he can see the actual size of the room John can finally think about the interior decoration. I don't intend to put very much furniture in but I'd like to put in bits that have got quite a bit of scale. Yeah I think that's so right. I've got a fantastic court cupboard, huge court cupboard that we've been given. That's amazing. Somebody gave that to us didn't they? Fantastic isn't it? Just the right scale isn't it? Yeah. How the hell we're gonna get it up the stairs I have no idea. Presumably it comes into bits does it? No it does none of it comes off. I might have to invent a way it comes into bits. No we don't want any more of that thank you very much. I mean over here I'm going to make a sort of octagonal bookcase so you'll be able to access them at low level. Calverley Hall is a complicated building in many ways built in different styles over several centuries. A suburban village has grown up around it so it's hard to imagine its original setting and how the rooms might once have looked. But just 25 miles to the north is a house that offers some clues to Calverley in the Middle Ages. Unlike Calverley Markenfield Hall outside Ripon is still surrounded by rolling fields. It's also a similar period to Calverley and there's an upstairs grand sitting room that buildings archaeologist Jonathan Clark wants Anna and John to see. What an absolutely incredible room. What could be a cold stone-walled medieval hall has been transformed into a comfortable living space. So I suppose the thing we're trying to kind of wrap our minds around here or I am is thinking that right at the beginning when our building first began and that wonderful fireplace that we've got was built it was in a room a bit like this essentially. I mean smaller because this is bigger in measurements isn't it? I think it's slightly wider but I think lengthwise it's about the same. Just as here at Markenfield Calverley's solar also once had a much higher ceiling so it would have felt even more like this. Always on the lookout for inspiration something in this huge space has caught John's eye. Anna what's amazing is that this is what I proposed to put at the far end of what we call the solar and yet I'd never actually seen it before. But I mean it's exactly I said a table with the books under it. You did yes. I wanted to have a structure like this and I've just been sitting here wondering whether I could make it out of a perhaps an old table which I could adapt in some way to enclose books like this. I'll think of something. But it's the outside of Markenfield Hall that feels so different to the way Calverley looks today. What's so wonderful about it is it does just really allow you mentally to kind of imagine must have been much more like this. Open fields, land that you're farming, lovely gardens and grounds and orchards and all that kind of stuff. When you see this building built almost exactly the same time by a family that had connections to the Calverley's, same sort of status, you realise that this is what Calverley Old Hall sprang from. This amazing romantic world of moats and orchards and beautiful windows with wonderful mullions and gothic detailing. So I think it really reinforces seeing this, just how much it matters to save Calverley, that it isn't just an interesting oldish building in a built-up area. It is actually comparable with Markenfield Hall behind me and its history is just as rich and just as important. Unlike Markenfield Hall, Calverley will be open for members of the public to stay in and there's about a year to go until the Landmark Trust opens its doors to guests. Wow. How are you? Yeah good, how are you doing? I'm very well. Anna and John Evitts are meeting up with the site foreman Andy Dewhurst. Can you give us a tour then? Certainly. Inspired by the visit to Markenfield Hall, John's keen to furnish these big spaces with big furniture. I found the other day a huge coffer. I wanted something with a bit of scale and I've managed to find a really large table. It's got these wonderful bases so there'll be lots of room to get. Oh fantastic. It's a real proper big refectory table. Yeah, proper big number. When the Landmark Trust bought Calverley 40 years ago, these wooden panels were in the building but their original position was unknown. They're now about to become a prominent feature of a downstairs bedroom in the solar block. Timber expert Michael Bloom has been given the job of Oh that looks amazing. Look at that. Yeah it's looking good, it's looking good. So have you had to do lots of work to that to make it fit? We have yeah because we're reusing it from another place. They're all, it's all been handmade obviously. Every panel's different so I'm having a little bit of a job trying to match it up because I'm using five or six different panels but it seems to be working out all right at the minute. So presuming on we start getting our staircase quite soon do we? They have actually just started manufacture. This temporary staircase will soon be replaced by a specially designed modern construction currently being made in a workshop in Devon. I'm just worrying about getting this absolutely monumental cupboard upstairs. You've three spots, oh yeah no problem. Hey this is you know you'll be haunted by those. Easy. Easy. Five months later John Evitz is back on site to inspect the new staircase finally being fitted. Well look at this. Hi are you doing it? You making it Michael? Yes we are installing it yes me and Gary yeah. So these are the laminated pieces made down in Crediton. They're amazing aren't they? What are they like to put together? It's a bit of a jigsaw but it's good. This is just a dry fit that we're doing at the minute to make sure that everything fits. To make the staircase even stronger the treads have been made from laminated timber. Multiple planks of Douglas fir glued together. Have you ever made anything like this before? Not like this one to be honest. This is the first time on this particular type of staircase but it's going together okay. I can drop this next step on if you want to see us install that that one there. Are you ready? I like the way it says not safe and you're walking happily up it. Just so nobody else goes on it. So now it's a case of installing it in between the studs. Eat your heart out Ikea. Have you got a little white sheet that says which order it goes? Yeah that's right yeah. It's very precise we've literally not got any room for error at all. Well you better not make a mistake. That's it yeah yeah definitely measured twice. Cut once on this one. At Calverley Old Hall all the dusty construction work has finally been completed. Anne has come to see the most delicate part of the whole conservation process on the remarkable Tudor wall paintings. When she first saw them three years ago they were covered in the dust and dirt of 500 years. Now a team from Opus Conservation is painstakingly bringing them back to life. Dr Lizzie Woolley is one of the specialists leading the work. Hi hi hi Lizzie how are you? You look very well thank you. Oh my goodness wow gosh look at it. The whole section's totally invisible before and I don't remember seeing anything down here. It's a far cry from the harsh Victorian restoration work on the paintings at Westminster. What's been revealed here is the original Tudor colour and design. It's been responding well hasn't it? Yes there's a lot more detail that's come out. How amazing and look right across there it's all come up on the timber. Lizzie's team have also uncovered two Tudor faces. One is possibly Sir William Calverley himself the man who commissioned these paintings. The other awkwardly painted over a diagonal timber may be his wife. The cleaning process itself is slow and precise involving very careful brushing and hoovering. Then a special sponging followed by the application of a consolidant liquid through a fine tissue that will conserve the old paint. It's been really exciting because some of the things that we knew would work well have indeed worked well. Lifting off a really thick layer of loose dust revealed a lot of details to us but then it's kept coming better and better and clearer and clearer and as we do the consolidation step just much more detail and more paint remaining there than we had perhaps first expected so yeah it's exciting every step really. The big thrill for me today has been that we have there in that scheme now actual depictions of people of two individuals looks like a man and a woman in contemporary Tudor dress quite possibly people who lived at Calverley the people who commissioned the paintings so it's like a whole other layer of discovery on top of our original one. There's just a week to go until Calverley Old Hall in West Yorkshire needs to be ready and open for business to welcome its first guests. Rob you've just gone empty-handed. Yeah because I'm getting the deck chairs and I'm gonna rest. But John Evitts still has a mountain of heavy furniture to move in. Before they tackle the really big stuff John's team are starting with the special bookcase he's had made. You all right? I've got this side. We have to take the handrail down to get it up. Okay Bo can you come around this way? That's it whoa and down. Okay so far so good and that was the easy one. Next is the 15-foot refectory table that John bought from his old school. Can we rest it on the edge bro first? Okay down. Why on earth do I deal with all this heavy furniture? I must be insane. Anyway it looks great doesn't it? Looks just the business. Now for the big beast. A 17th century court cupboard weighing nearly a quarter of a ton that has to get up the staircase to the first floor solo. I've got a certain feeling of trepidation. I mean I'm looking very much forward to seeing what it looks like here but I'm not looking forward to getting it here at all. John's first plan is to use wooden planks to slide it upstairs. Oh my god they nearly get there don't they? But the thickness of the planks will reduce the height available. I guess you didn't think of that. And I think what we're just going to have to do is take a manly pill and get on with it now. You got any? No. Okay we're into the window Right go. Next step. That's it. Okay. Right. No this is the step that's going to tell. This is the one. Lift. It's the moment of truth. Ready? On the word lift. Careful. Did anyone check to see if it's empty? Right are we going to go for it? Easy. I don't know why I had a sleepless night. I really don't. Is this the time to admit that I haven't measured it? I think it sits there very happily. I'm going to put a lamp on the top, give it a bit of a polish, put the cornice on it and that's it. Planted. Here we are. The big day has finally arrived. Four decades since the Landmark Trust first acquired the building and after a renovation project lasting more than three years and costing five million pounds. Oh come on in. Calverley Old Hall is finally about to open its doors. Three years ago the Great Hall was a demolition site with the remains of two separate cottages contained inside this one massive medieval space. Today it's barely recognisable. So here we are. Here's the kitchen or the Great Hall. Wow doesn't it look brilliant. I remember saying I can just really imagine how great it'll be to stand at this spot and to be chopping your onions and to be seeing this amazing medieval roof in front of you and it'll be fantastic and I haven't actually got an onion but I mean it really it really lives up to it doesn't it. I mean I think they spend a lot of time in here don't you. Yeah I think it's going to be the real hub of the whole building. At the heart of Calverley Old Hall is a modern recreation of the medieval Screams Passage that was once here. I think this is a great success this thing here and it does feel like there was a through passage here doesn't it. Yeah it does. And so this is the panel room if you remember. Yes it's looking gorgeous isn't it. A year ago this was just a workshop with the old wood panels still being cut up and refashioned to line the walls. Now it's been seamlessly transformed into a smart bedroom complete with memories of the king who locked up one of the Calverley family in the Tower of London. When Anna was first here there was still a little cottage inserted into one end of the great hall. It's gorgeous isn't it. A huge roof timber was the only sign that this was once part of a grand medieval building. A year later the old cottage had been stripped back to bare stone. Today a modern staircase sweeps up through this important central space. Oh this is looking so wonderful isn't it. This metalwork forming the top of the balustrade here. The monumental beam is restored to pride of place again above a modern minstrels gallery with a stunning view down to the great hall. So it's one place we've got the memory really haven't we of the division of these great medieval chambers into cottages in the 18th century still really visible. Here's the solar now done. Oh look at it. A few years ago once the cottage floors had been ripped out the solar block was a single cavernous space 30 feet high. Now the first floor solar sitting room is a warm and comfortable living space. Oh doesn't it look wonderful. I like the idea of having a library, a sitting area and somewhere you can play games in the window. There's three distinct different spaces. So much fun is going to be had in this room. I just love it. I think it will. I think it'll be quite a party space. And finally Calverley's unique masterpiece the upstairs room in the parlour block. Shall we go and have a look at the painted chamber? Look at it. From the first moment Anna saw this room these extraordinary 450 year old paintings have been the most remarkable of all the surprising discoveries at Calverley. Oh it's so good. It is a fantastic space. It works brilliantly. I mean this room must be the different of everywhere mustn't it really in the whole building. At almost every stage the three-year-long battle to save Calverley Old Hall from dereliction and then restore it has been like peeling back layers of history to reveal a whole range of secrets that no one on the team could ever have imagined. The thing that's been so wonderful among all the wonderful things about this project has been to bring it all back together again to reunite all these different spaces to make them whole again and to take the kind of best of the way that people lived in the middle ages about living together and doing things together occupying big communal spaces and to make that part of how this building can work again in the 21st century and into the with whole new generations of people being able to come here, stay here, cook here, have fun here, enjoy life here once again and that just feels like such an achievement.