Country House Rescue

6:05pm – Wednesday, August 1 on ABC1

In the final episode in the series Ruth is at Pen-y-Lan Hall, built in 1690 by the founder of Lloyds bank and bought by the Holloway family in 1849. The house has been passed down the generations.

Emma Holloway grew up in the house and has, in turn, brought up her four children there. To Emma Pen-y-Lan is her life. But the house is also a noose around her neck – with debts of $470,000. The house is in a shabby state and without the income to do it up the future looks bleak.

Can Ruth help Emma to turn it around?

6:00pm – Wednesday, July 25 on ABC1

Ruth Watson has more than just a crumbling home to contend with this week as her country house mission turns to playing peace maker. Hill Place in Swanmore, Hampshire is a Grade II listed Georgian villa, built in 1791. Home to Will and Rebecca Dobson since inheriting it from Will’s grandmother, the couple have given up their home and their jobs to put their all into making the house a success.

With a long list of expensive and urgent repairs needed as well as additional yearly running costs of $77,000 the pair have no choice but to make Hill Place work as a commercial business. While Will is working on the family’s apple orchard, Rebecca, appointed ‘chief arse kicker’, is overseeing the renovations to the beautiful but neglected house. But in the background are four disapproving sisters.

Will’s mother and her siblings all condemn the modernising changes planned for what was once their parents’ home.

Ruth invites Aunt Priscilla, the representative for the family, to Hill Place to discuss some of their misgivings. It’s clear to see that their grievances run deep as she explains the sisters’ devastation and shock at some of the changes Will and Rebecca have put in place. Can Ruth make them reconcile and get the rest of the family to see just how hard Will and Rebecca have worked to keep Hill Place up and running?

6:00pm – Wednesday, July 18 on ABC1

This week’s episode sees Ruth tackling Garston Manor, a grade two listed Georgian house on the outskirts of Watford. Headmistress Sheila O’Neill bought the house, built in 1812as a wreck for just under $800,000 from the local council. Against the advice of friends and family Sheila had dreams to turn the decrepit building into a school.

Thirteen years later and her Montessori school is just about breaking even but the O’Neill family is desperate for a secondary business to pay their massive shortfalls on the house. Sheila and her children, four daughters in their 30s and 40s, all live in self-contained flats on the upper floors of the house with three of them even teaching in the school. But attempts at diversifying the manor into a wedding and conference venue have failed and so the ladies of the manor call on Ruth for help.

Ruth is quick to see that the house is institutionalised and unloved. The gardens are uncared for and the family is at an impasse. All want to make their mark on their house but Sheila rules the roost and claims her daughters are all talk and no action when it comes to turning around Garston. Ruth needs to persuade frail Sheila to relinquish control and pass some responsibility onto her eccentric and freespirited daughters.

6:00pm – Wednesday, July 11 on ABC1

This week sees Ruth Watson attempting to help one of the most historically important houses yet. Kentchurch Court in Herefordshire has been home to the Scudamores for over 1000 years, handed down through the family since 1058. Now lived in by Jan Lucas-Scudamore, Kentchurch is not the life of luxury Jan thought it’d be when she first married into the family.

With running costs totalling just under $190,000 a year, maintaining the house is becoming increasingly difficult.

On arrival, Ruth is dismayed by Jan’s dedication to the house. It was originally her estranged husband’s house and her son, 26-year-old Joss, who is set to inherit the home, is away travelling rather than claiming his rightful seat. But Jan claims that Kentchurch is her love and passion and she has a ten-year plan to hand over the house in a good state to her son before moving on to a new life.

6:00pm – Wednesday, July 4 on ABC1

In the fourth episode of the series Ruth Watson visits determined Tim Le Grice and his family, owners of Trereife House in Penzance, Cornwall.

After inheriting the crumbling manor and its huge debts in 1986 Tim has spent the past 25 years trying to turn around the fortunes of his family home. But Trereife is a house in peril, falling down at the seams. And while holding down a full-time job as a solicitor Tim has been working 15 hours a day trying new business ventures to give them a much needed cash injection. The house is making a loss, it’s falling apart and the bank is close to forcing a sale.

Tim’s and his wife Liz’s two children, student trainee Peter and literary agent Georgina, are keen to take over the running of their beloved home to stop Tim from putting his health at stake, but their father is reluctant to let go and doesn’t want to pass the burden of the home onto his children.

Ruth steps in and soon discovers that part of Trereife’s travails lie with Tim’s misguided business ideas – a failed zoo, a gypsy caravan theme park, a restaurant and a dairy farm. Ignoring his family’s pleas for rationality Tim has ploughed on with his ill-advised projects bringing them to the brink of bankruptcy.

Can Ruth get him to see sense and restore the house to its previous glory?

6:00pm – Wednesday, June 27 on ABC1

Monreith House is an imposing Georgian mansion built in 1799 near Port William in south-west Scotland. It’s home to Sir Michael Maxwell, the last in line to one of Scotland’s oldest families who can be traced back to 1481 and whose power and riches have left a trail of architectural heritage in the area, including the unique triangular Calaverock Castle.

Eccentric bachelor Sir Michael inherited Monreith in the early 1980s from his uncle. But his uncle took the view that it would be cheaper for the grand property to fall down rather than to pay to have it demolished, and has left Sir Michael with a house in disrepair on top of huge debts.

Sir Michael calls on the assistance of Ruth Watson to help turn his failing fortunes round. Can she persuade him to improve on Monreith’s accommodation and make more of his amazing family history?

6:00pm – Wednesday, June 20 on ABC1

In the second episode of the series, Ruth visits Tapeley Park, a sprawling stately home on the North Devon coast and seat of the notorious ecoactivist Hector Christie. As eldest son and heir to the well-known Christie family Hector was due to inherit Glyndebourne Opera House. Instead, “over a bottle of amyl nitrate” in a Brighton nightclub, Hector flipped a coin with his younger brother to decide on Glyndebourne’s fate. Hector won but wasn’t interested in opera so decided to take on the lesser known Tapely Park and ended up with an equally grand abode which has been in the family for 300 odd years. Until recently, Hector was running Tapeley as a quasi-commune but he has decided it’s time to regain some control – so he kicked out the hippies and called on Ruth Watson’s help to turn the crumbling mansion’s destiny around.

The fabulous gardens are open to the public but the business is losing money and the ceiling in the grand dining room, where Old Masters jostle with protest placards for wall space, has recently caved in.

Hector’s loyal staff believe that his pre-occupation with protesting against supermarket and GM crops means he’s not fully focused on Tapeley’s core business. Can Ruth persuade Hector to turn some of his idiosyncrasies to his favour to attract a younger audience for Tapeley?

6:00pm – Wednesday, June 13 on ABC1

Ruth Watson is back for a third series of Country House Rescue, taking on some of Britain’s biggest country houses and most historic families.

Britain’s historic buildings are central to its sense of identity, but they are in crisis. The recession has left stately home owners facing a predicament not seen since the mass demolitions of the 1960s. Can Ruth find new ways of keeping these cash-hungry buildings running, relevant and standing.

The series is narrated by Hugh Bonneville, now well known to viewers as the owner of the fictional country house, Downton Abbey, in the role of the Earl of Grantham.

In the first episode of the series, Ruth visits Wyresdale Hall in Lancashire, home to the Whewell family.

The Hall belongs to James Whewell senior and his wife Sally, who have spent decades restoring the estate to its former glory. Next in line is their son, Jim, who currently lives in London and runs a successful arts and music festival. At some point, his parents would like him to take over the estate, but for that to succeed they need to turn it from a money pit into a viable business. The only trouble is, James junior and senior don’t see eye to eye – the father is a traditionalist, the son a reformer. Enter Ruth Watson.

Can Ruth Watson help bring this family together and reverse their fortunes?

6:00pm – Wednesday, December 28 on ABC1

This week Ruth returns to Cothay Manor, one of the country’s finest medieval houses with its beautifully manicured gardens. It is a labour of love for its eccentric owners Mary-Anne and Alastair Robb, who singlehandedly run the estate. The gardens and house were always open to the public, but the Robb needed to be making more money, and were not sure of how to make that a reality without spoiling, as they saw it, the essence of the estate.

They also hadn’t thought through the future of Cothay and who out of their four children would take on the estate.

Ruth Watson recognised the exquisite beauty of the house and gardens as well as the sorry state the business was in. She taught the Robbs how to make the garden more commercial but without taking away from its natural charm. Food became a long debated topic with Ruth trying to impress upon MaryAnne how important a proper tearoom is.

Find out whether the Robbs have followed Ruth’s advice, in this third catch-up episode. Have they taken her advice and sorted out their tearoom and plant-selling area? And is the issue of inheritance now resolved?

6:00pm – Wednesday, December 21 on ABC1

Ruth Watson continues her revisits of the six country houses that she came to ‘save’ in series one. This week she is back at Chesters in the Scottish Borders.

John Henderson and his wife Ellie own Chesters. John inherited the property from his grandfather and despite the couple’s passion for the house they were stuck in London doing jobs to pay for its upkeep. The house was in a perilous state and the Hendersons needed an income to save it from falling down. An entire wing was derelict and the couple didn’t have the $150,000 they needed to repair it.

Ruth introduced the idea of using Chesters as a location for corporate away-days, and John and Ellie were encouraged by the income they could make from these events. John persisted with his idea of a brewery and Ruth further suggested that the cottages on the estate be converted for long term rental.

Since Ruth’s visit, a lot has happened at Chesters, most notably the arrival of baby Lily, John and Ellie’s first daughter. But will they have taken Ruth’s advice and found the funds to save the derelict wing?