Original subtitles

Every year, 10,000 Brits cross the Channel

to start a new life in France.

Oui, d'accord... LAUGHTER

Engineer Dick Strawbridge and his partner, designer Angel,

decided to join them.

That's quite a lot of garlic! SHE LAUGHS

But while they thought their budget might stretch to a place by the Med,

a Parisian apartment, or perhaps a small country cottage,

Dick and Angel discovered they could dream bigger.

Much bigger. This is truly beautiful.

This is the story of one family's extraordinary adventure as they turn

a derelict chateau into a fairy tale castle in time for their wedding,

in less than a year.

This place is amazing.

It's so incredibly important to bring it back to life.

On the way, they'll uncover some incredible secrets.

Look at all these bottles. And they're all handmade.

They'll try to live off the land like the locals...

Do you think a chicken knows that it can't swim?

Yes, of course it does. ..and even try to talk like them.

Pour le...le...la fait... Join in any time, sweetheart.

Peut-etre nous...fumer?

But, above all, they'll discover what it really means to revive a building

that's been abandoned for nearly half a century.

Look at the sewage, look at the electrics in here,

if you actually look at the lead paint,

it basically says don't buy me.

The size of the task is monumental.

This is craft

and construction...

It is amazing, you know. ..on the grandest of scales.

For years, Dick Strawbridge and his partner, Angel,

have dreamt of living in France.

It was only when they started house-hunting that they realised they could

buy an entire 19th century chateau for the price of a two-bedroom flat

in England. She's found the one she wants, we're in trouble!

Three weeks ago they took the plunge and moved across the water...

..to start a new life as the proud owners of

the Chateau de La Motte Husson.

Congratulations.

It's so gorgeous.

The chateau cost them £280,000.

On the face of it, a bargain.

What they got for their money was five floors, 45 rooms,

three-foot thick walls, 70 doors, six chimneys and 17 fireplaces.

Not to mention the 12 acres, seven outbuildings,

a wood and a moat full of carp.

But there's a reason why the French have turned their backs on these

grand old estates. The repairs can run into hundreds of thousands.

To start with, Dick and Angel had just £20,000.

Ooh! That's very, very unpleasant.

Before long, 18 grand was sunk into a ginormous plumbing and

heating system.

This is the start. We're getting closer to heat.

So now, with almost all their savings gone, there's no going back.

They're moving into a building site.

I think he's an absolute nut job, I think he's crazy.

Moving in? I wouldn't be doing it.

With their belongings arriving from England, today is moving-in day.

Honey! I'm home! SHE LAUGHS

The Neo-Renaissance style chateau,

which towers over the local countryside, is surrounded by a huge

moat the size of six Olympic swimming pools.

The only way across is by a stone bridge,

designed for a horse and carriage.

TRUCK HORN BEEPS

It doesn't bode well for our delivery of all our kit, does it?

Unloading everything at the gate is likely to bring on a revolt.

Imagine carrying all of our stuff up to the first and second floor from

back there. Don't do that.

It's all happening now.

Five centimetres either side is all that lies between delivery and disaster.

That way a little bit. That way a little bit.

This lorry has made it through OK.

But at some point the pillar has been twisted.

When I got to the gates, I'm like, "Oh... Is it really going to fit through?

I've got to say, absolutely amazing.

It's a bit rudimentary inside, but it's good.

It is good.

Umbrellas, they can stay just over there.

There is an umbrella stand.

Oh, no, the backroom.

Just put it in the upstairs middle, yeah.

I don't know whose it is.

Darling, you're this floor size.

Yeah, lovely.

This will be the public toilets for events.

Angel has ambitions to start a company offering vintage weddings

in the chateau. We're going to try and make this place our home and our business.

Bird cages go in the petit salon, please.

If we get that balance right, we've cracked it, haven't we?

We've got our dream.

Former army colonel and engineer Dick...

Sacre bleu! ..has a plan to make the chateau self-sufficient.

Just finally getting organised now,

which means that I can start doing some big projects.

We have got several hundred boxes, lots of furniture, spread in different rooms.

Do you know where everything is? Yeah.

Do you, really? Yeah.

Baby, all our stuff's here, now.

We live in France! Mm.

But for anything to work, there has to be heat.

The Chateau de La Motte has spent decades empty.

Its 17 fireplaces haven't seen a naked flame for over 40 years.

Dick has designed a new central heating system,

a gas stove in the basement and two wood burners will drive hot and cold

water through 600 metres of piping into a thermal store in the attic.

For the last three weeks,

Dick and the planning team have been working day and night on his epic new system.

Here we go!

I can hear it coming.

And now it's finally time to put it to the test.

OK?

Brilliant.

First fire done.

Wow! Heat!

Even with all that investment,

the system is still only connected to five rooms and can only run one

tap at a time. Look at that!

And it's warm water!

Hey!

But it's not only a handful of rooms that have been brought back to life

by the heat.

It's also woken up a plague.

We've got a problem with flies.

And the problem is, this place has been empty, it's been cool,

the flies have come and they've hibernated.

They've overwintered. Little holes like this, in behind the panelling,

they've just gone to sleep. We're bringing warmth back into the chateau,

which means the flies are coming out in their thousands.

This has been vacuumed up half a dozen times.

But it's not just the flies,

we've had birds through the broken windows and they've been roosting here.

A wildlife haven!

On closer inspection,

it turns out that there are even more gate-crashers lurking above stairs.

Dick just found... Argh! SQUEAKING

..a bat's nest!

One just landed on my head.

Just like in the UK, endangered bats are protected by law in France.

We can leave them in peace now. Yeah, we have to leave them in peace.

So while they can evict the birds and flies,

they'll just have to close the doors on the bats for now.

This is...

This must be the architect, no?

As the dust settles on the move Dick and Angel have one last treasure to unpack.

Remarkably,

the original 19th-century drawings and accounts of the build have survived.

All of this is the structure.

How cute! Just a little crest!

They give a unique insight into how the original family lived on the estate.

I'm just laughing at this, because it says Chambre de Madame.

And this is Chambre de Monsieur.

So, you would live over there, and I would live over here.

Not happening.

The kitchen. I think that's a big bread oven.

Laiterie.

Laiterie? For milk.

That's... That's where they probably made butter and things. Mm.

Building a chateau of this size would have provided work for hundreds of artisan builders.

I hate to think of the size of the army that did this.

Mm...

This is the definitive of all the work executed.

This looks like the bills. SHE GIGGLES

The 19th-century spreadsheet is preserved in great detail.

In 1869, a roofer was paid around 40p a day,

a locksmith, 50p, and a labourer, 25p.

The original owners clearly quibbled over invoices,

knocking off margins where they could.

Multiplied by £20, any of these numbers,

that will give us what sort of the costs are today. Yeah.

Total is nearly a 47,000.

Mm-hm. 50,000 francs goes to...

..1 million.

If you think today, if you have a plot of land,

and you are spending £1 million building something... Mm-hm, yeah.

..you could never hope to get something as grand as this.

The chateau was built as a gift from the young signor Baglioni to his wife.

Dick and Angel's renovation will be no less a labour of love.

Except they won't be able to afford much labour!

About £1 million worth of expenditure over a period of six years to build it.

And we've got next to nothing. We've got the skills. You've got the skills!

Not me! It's the sheer effort.

Work harder, work faster.

The French may have abandoned these landmarks,

knowing what money pits they are.

BOY LAUGHS Hello!

Hello, big boy!

But former military man Dick is convinced that he can do most of the

work himself.

And his first target, the windows.

The detail is phenomenal.

The amount of work that's gone into them, they're really quite special.

Having said that,

they're falling apart.

The glass is barely being held in.

Sometimes we've got no glass.

The wood is so rotten that it's on the edge of crumbling.

Every frame was crafted out of oak.

Each window has its own unique cast iron handle.

And there's a few more than your average two-bedroom flat.

24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30...

31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36.

40... That's a proper arrow slit.

Look at the angles on that.

We'll keep that. 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49...

59 windows.

This is not even funny.

And if that wasn't enough,

Dick and Angel are also working to an ambitious deadline.

November is the month when they first met.

They want to celebrate with a wedding for 200.

The only problem is, that's around nine months away.

Time is ticking. I really didn't appreciate the enormity of the job.

It's not just a slap of paint and a taxidermy head.

We have a massive task ahead of us.

I'm looking around every single room and I think, "OK,

"there's about a month in each room."

Multiply that by the number of rooms, and November is actually very close.

We're BLEEP!

The Chateau de la Motte Husson was once a castle for a nobleman.

The Chateau's crest reads, "Every land is a home for the brave."

No motto could be more true than for Dick Strawbridge and his family,

who've taken up residence.

I don't care that it's falling apart and dilapidated

and flies everywhere. Because they're our flies.

Yes, that's very true.

The few rooms that are habitable have heat,

but the system is being fed by small gas bottles,

which run out within hours.

FLICKS SWITCH REPEATEDLY

BLEEP!

Dick thinks he's found a solution.

Big D, that tank is going in under the ground over there,

so we've got a very large supply of gas.

At the minute, we're using bottles and they last about...

three hours on maximum burn!

This is the best solution.

And an even better thing about the scheme,

it's going to cost him nothing.

It's a French freebie, to help people in rural communities

where there are no gas mains.

But digging a hole of this size so close to the chateau

could be risky.

Where do our sewage pipes go?

The last thing we want to do is have one of those dug up.

The idea of him actually finding a pipe full of our poo, not good!

It's a total voyage of discovery today.

The new tank holds 1,100 litres, equal to 84 bottles.

While the tank fits, the sewage pipe is still missing in action.

Really hoping it's not just filling up the basement somewhere!

Part of the deal is to dig a trench for the supply pipe.

But they're only contracted to take it so far.

What I didn't realise was when you get your tank put in,

you get five metres of trench. And that's it.

Because if I'd known, I would have actually had my tank a lot closer

to this is where it's going into the building.

But paying a skilled gas engineer to do all the donkey work

is not in Dick's budget.

So he's doing the smart part of it and I'm doing my navvy bit.

It's got to be done.

And I'm far too old for this.

C'est une jonquille? Jonquille. Jonquille.

C'est une jonquille sur le chateau.

It's a daffodil on the side of the chateau.

Very beautiful! Very beautiful!

With the new supply connected...

There we are. We're cooking on gas!

..hopefully, that'll be the end the onerous small bottles.

Before the gas team leave,

resourceful Dick spots another opportunity

to get something for nothing.

One of the vans coming in has nudged the top of my post.

And it's heavy, I couldn't move it even when I got up on a ladder.

So he's going to nudge it with his digger.

The man is so delicate.

OK?

Parfait.

That saves me an awful lot of hassle.

Merci.

Once the chateau's land stretched for miles,

growing food to feed a huge household.

Hold my hand, hold my hand, we're going to go for a walk.

Let's go for a walk now.

We have here so many resources that we can use

to have a really good quality of life.

Look at the fish.

The kids are going to grow up somewhere with a moat,

with woodlands, with a walled garden.

We're going to have a chance to be properly self-sufficient as well.

And that's where the fun starts.

Dick grew up in the country, but for a city girl like Angel,

this is a whole new experience.

How many chickens are we having?

20? No! Can you imagine how many eggs? You'd be egg-bound!

But they won't drown in the moat? No, they won't.

They won't go in the moat. Do you think a chicken knows

that it can't swim? Yes, of course it does! Really?

Of course it does. I promise you.

Their first target for the good life is the walled garden, or potager.

It was once the centrepiece of the chateau's productivity.

With an orchard and vegetable patch.

We will tame it. We'll get as much food as we possibly can because,

this place is meant to be lived on.

Dick sees the potager as the perfect bolthole for chickens.

But first, he'll have to make it fox proof.

The foxes will come and kill our chickens.

In the water, we've seen what look like large ratty things.

That's the head of one of those rodents,

that a fox has killed.

If you look at those teeth, they look like beaver teeth.

The chickens will take up residence in the old laundry room.

Is it warm enough in here? The chickens, they have big duvets!

All those feathers. I'm not worried about that at all.

Listen, I really don't know anything about chickens,

but I'm guessing in a couple of weeks, I will.

Yes, you will, very quickly.

Dick and Angel are keen to get started.

But it's not easy with two kids under three.

We need to put more time in and we don't have any!

But the cavalry, in the form of Angel's parents, is on its way.

I'm here! I've arrived!

Steve and Jenny are also taking a giant leap of faith

by moving to France.

It used to be quite traditional to have multi generations together,

for a very good reason.

Families used to stick together.

Their room for now will be the grand salon,

where the window handles are carved with a portrait of Lady Baglion,

and guests were entertained in some splendour.

It's a far cry from Benfleet in Essex.

THEY LAUGH

Well, it was a bit different to when we did it 40 odd years ago!

The chateau is still packed full of treasures,

providing hours of foraging for Dick,

who likes nothing more than to improvise.

This old ladder, I wouldn't walk up it,

but the chickens will roost on it. Watch. You see?

What we have there... Oh, I see. Right, OK.

When they come time to roost. There's enough space for them

to spread out.

This is one of the doors in one of the stables.

It feels like it's made of hardwood.

And what I'm doing is making a little area here.

So that when we open this door and come in,

the chickens don't all go straight out the door.

Which is quite important, because 12 acres is quite a lot

of space to lose them.

The laundry backs onto the walled garden,

but there's no hatch to let the chickens come and go.

I have to be a little bit careful here,

because I don't want the whole thing to come down.

Shall we pretend that we've escaped somewhere?

Happy chicken hole? Yeah, that's good. OK.

DRILL WHIRS

With the baby-sitters installed, and the hatch completed,

all Dick and Angel need to do now is to get themselves to market.

There we go. We're ready!

The chateau is in a part of France called the Pays de la Loire.

Named after the country's longest river,

flowing 630 miles from the Massif Central mountains

to the Atlantic Ocean.

This is France's largest farming region.

Its produce is famous all around the world.

There's supposed to be chickens at the market.

Lots of people!

Dick and Angel have come to the market town of St Helier d'Harcourt,

just over the border in Normandy.

# Chick, chick, chick, chickens! Lay a little egg for me! #

They're looking for the petit marche, where you can buy

almost any farmyard animal, and the stall holders love to haggle.

There we go. What's that?

Cages. Cages! Bonjour, monsieur!

Oh, it's so cute! It's like a pet!

Allez, on va tourner. Par ce que c'est comme ca. Hup! Voila!

OK. I think they've got ducks over there.

They have. They're adorable!

Are these pets, or are they for eating? No, no.

Darling, we're in France.

I love the colour of their hair. Platinum blondes.

C'est Marilyn Monroe!

THEY LAUGH

Right, OK. What do you fancy? Un, deux, trois.

One, two, three. OK.

I actually think we should take three of those as well. OK.

Dit coucou a la camera! Coucou!

OK, now, I've got to tell you, I like these. C'est tres bon.

Nine. Woohoo!

And do you want to get a big boy for them?

What, so they start breeding?

No, it's just the cockerel will keep them together.

Well, that's enough. Yes. That is.

Nine chickens and a cockerel.

Purchased at £8.50 each.

Dick's like, "We're only having six."

But I could tell he got a bit excited.

Ooh! Woooh! Very good! La banque!

We saved 50p by spending £100, nearly.

Merci! Au revoir! A bientot.

OK! Is that OK? Yes, let's go this way.

Be careful.

We're going to see some chickens!

Yay! What noise do they make? HE ROARS

CAR HORN BEEPS

THEY LAUGH

Hello! We've got a present for you! Help Mummy carry this in.

I can't do it on my own.

THEY LAUGH

Dorothy, want some? Dorothy, want some?

We're making this a home, aren't we?

Arthur! Come here, mate. Come here, mate. Arthur, come here.

What's that? Is this...? HE GIGGLES

What is it? Chicken! Chicken! THEY LAUGH

That's the first time he's ever said that!

There we go, look at that. Arthur, look!

THEY LAUGH

Just weeks after moving in, Dick and Angel have heat,

hot water and livestock.

And all being well, it'll be omelettes at dawn!

It's been two months since Dick and Angel moved their family into a

derelict 19th-century chateau.

So far, they've barely made a dent in the 450 faults

listed by the inspector.

Woodworm, crumbling masonry and leaking windows are unchanged.

With their savings running dry,

they've been doing as much work as they can to make the place liveable.

But the squeeze is hitting home.

We are not made of money and that tiny little bit of cushion we had

has been used to buy the chateau.

But it is constant expense.

And you know what? A bit of a shock to Dick and I.

Things are expensive here, much more than in the UK.

To keep the project afloat,

Dick has to leave the chateau and his family behind

to take work overseas.

Dick's away earning money to pay for the chateau.

We're just excited to see this place breathe again.

After a few weeks away...

Oh, it's making my ear go funny.

..he's back home, just in time for the turn of the season.

Spring's arriving, the leaves out.

It's so beautiful.

Big blow.

Yeah! Look at that!

What are these? Little trees?

Those are little trees. Those are conker trees.

Watch, now, this is really, really clever.

There's the conker.

Oh, wow!

That tree is a conker from the year we moved here.

Once upon a time, the chateau was surrounded by a huge forest.

It provided the wood for all the fixtures.

The double revolution staircase and parquet flooring

all came from oak and chestnut trees.

Master craftsmanship like this can last for centuries,

but without maintenance,

the exteriors have succumbed to the elements

and the windows are showing their age.

Employing artisans to replace them now could cost upwards of £60,000.

Dick hopes he can do the job for less than ten.

Paying other people to work for you...

causes me pain.

Much better to do it yourself.

Dick would like to make the windows as close

to the originals as possible.

If you look here, you've got the curve going in on the female,

and it sticks out in the male.

And when those two come together the male goes in like that

and gives it rumpy-pumpy, which means

the draft doesn't come through.

I like that. In fact they're all very well made

for windows that are 150, 170 years old.

They will be able to hold a double-glazed panel.

What makes this difficult is this.

That's expensive.

By the time I've done 50 of them, I could be quite good at this.

Some of the windows are salvageable,

as are most of the cast-iron handles.

They operate on a sophisticated locking system called Cremone.

No way you can afford to buy this today.

It's just lovely to think we're going to be keeping these

and using them.

How much would it cost to buy this again?

Why would you do that?

While Dick orders some specially-cut double glazing panels,

Angel is determined to keep to her deadline of a November wedding.

Well, I'm about to print Dick and I's wedding invitations

onto tea towels.

And I just wanted to put all the care and love

that we're going to put into our invite,

I wanted that to stay with people.

Dick made the screen printing device for Angel.

It's a technique that was popular in France in the 19th-century.

I haven't done this before.

One, two, three... Ink is skimmed across a stencil,

which leaves an imprint on the towel.

Oh, no!

It looks beautiful, but look.

That's really weird.

Dick.

Look, that's really odd! Why's that happened?

The reason why you've got marks at the end is, your screen...

See those edges here? It hasn't been covered over, has it?

It hasn't been covered over, so we need to get that taped up.

Right. OK, let's give it another go.

See what's going on now...

Yes!

That looks great, doesn't it?

It represents where we are in our life right now.

I am so, so, so chuffed.

But I've got about 180 to do,

and at the moment, it's a little bit slow!

That's a lot of guests to provide facilities for.

And the whole plumbing system will need another upgrade to cope.

What needs to go is the 50 metres of lead piping that's been hanging

around since the servants hand-pumped water from the well.

How are we getting on?

British plumbers Lee and his son, Kyle, have returned to get rid

of the once harmful pipes that have been banned from use

since the 1970s.

As far as we're concerned, this is the last vestiges of the old system. Of the old system. Yeah, indeed.

It's going. So, all the lead disappears.

And there's probably enough lead in here

to pay for about three copper pipes!

They're also here to make an important addition

to Dick's bespoke heating system.

This is the heart of the whole house,

and these are almost like arteries

that flow through the rest of the house.

But with nearly 9,000 square feet of space over five floors,

the heart just isn't strong enough.

Right now, there is only sufficient water pressure

to run one tap at a time.

How are you going to hold it? Do we need to put a piece of rope around it?

Dick's remedy is to spend £500 on a booster tank

which will triple the water pressure.

But someone has to carry that tank all the way to the attic.

We've done it before, haven't we, so...?

It's a bloody long way up with it!

89 steps. 89...!

To be precise!

Ingenious Dick has a knot for every occasion.

We're going to put down two clove horses and a half reef or something.

You have to have a knot that holds on to itself.

One more twist, one more twist.

Let's just walk up this way and see what happens. Let's go. Let's see what happens.

Right. That will get us up to the first floor.

How many stairs have we done?

13. 17. 17? 17.

The main stairwell, which was built to fit yards of silk skirts

and crinoline petticoats, is no problem.

It's when they hit the servants' quarters that the big crush begins.

Three, two, one...

Stay there.

I've got them. I've got them. I'm happy.

I've got it, mate, I've got it. Yeah.

Five floors up and the tank is finally ready for connection.

So, that was brute force and ignorance.

We need to open some windows up here.

Thanks, matey.

Inside the 450-litre tank is a balloon filled with air

which helps to create pressure.

The booster tank is a very simple system.

The water comes in here so we've got a big reservoir.

In this part of it is air.

That water is being pressurised,

which means if you open your taps everybody gets the same amount of

pressure because we've got this big reservoir being pushed down there.

So we never get to the point where we lose pressure in our taps.

This one tank will create enough pressure

to run several taps at once.

It's definitely an improvement.

That's quite exciting. You can have a shower while somebody brushes their teeth.

You may take it for granted but when the water

travels five floors up in the air, it's slightly more of a problem.

It's quite a neat solution.

With the new plumbing online,

Angel puts her seal on the wedding date.

Old magazines from the chateau.

Which I just think is just like...

is just a little bit nice.

This is the special wax.

There's something ceremonial about that.

And we have a little seal made up with Dick and my initials on

and the date of the wedding.

Da-da!

Sexy, right?

Back at his workshop, the windows are starting

to give Dick a headache.

We just have to cut off enough,

and then we're going to give us those two straight edges.

He's already spent days finding out that each one is a different size.

He's enlisted the help of Angel's father, Steve, a retired jeweller.

This is the cut list we have, and for the entrance hall

we know that we need three of them that are 50

and three of them that are 45.

Dick's bought some wood for the task.

He was hoping it would arrive cut to size, but no such luck.

Went along to the lumberyard to discover that they're going on holiday

for five weeks.

So I had to very quickly buy what is basically dried oak.

It's seasoned.

This is the outside of the tree. It's where all the sap rises.

No good for windows. So what we have to do now is find the planks,

the bits of wood that are inside this heart wood.

What was going to be a big job has just got a lot bigger.

Steve and I are going to turn basically dried bits of tree into windows.

We love a challenge.

Dick has spent £600 on timber so far,

but a third of it is useless.

Wow.

Just look at that.

That's waste. Isn't that unbelievable? I know.

It's a job that would have been done by skilled carpenters.

It doesn't like that knot at all, does it?

Let's start again.

Not two novices who are feeling their way.

But the wedding invites are out, and the deadline is set in stone.

A few weeks after arriving at the chateau,

some residents are definitely feeling at home.

CLUCKING

A relaxed chicken is a good laying chicken

and it's a tantalising taste of what life could be like when the walled

garden is up and running.

Now, what are we looking for?

Eggs. Come on, come in.

Yay! Have we got eggs?

Put them in, put them in the basket.

Good boy.

Yeah, gentle.

Eggie, eggie, eggies.

I think we have four eggs.

That's not bad. Chick!

We expect to get...

..seven or eight eggs a day

when they're starting to lay but look at the size, little baby eggs.

They're little pullets, bless them.

They start smaller, but they get bigger very, very quickly.

And they begin laying every couple of days,

but then they're going to lay every day.

How are we doing, children? We want eggs!

Eggs! Right.

There you go, Mummy.

Daddy's egg sits like that.

Watch, here's Dorothy's egg.

Where's it gone? It's disappeared.

Don't dip too much. Well done.

Oh, Dorothy.

Nice? Yummy.

Look at that, Dorothy.

That's the boy.

While a quieter way of life is just what Dick and Angel wanted,

they're finding out that French building suppliers can go quiet, too.

I've waited five weeks for my double glazed window panes.

And I'm still waiting. I'd like to put a rocket up everyone's arse.

And get them to work a bit quicker.

Dick and I actually are at a point where we really do need to sit down

and work out what we're not going to do.

With no new glass for the windows,

Dick has no choice but to put the whole job on hold.

We have...

..not enough time and too many windows to try and redo.

So we're going to have to make some really brutal decisions.

BANGING

We're repairing every window that can be repaired,

as opposed to replacing it.

Here's an example. A little but rotten,

but apart from a new sheet of glass in here, some new putty,

a lick of paint, you know, this winter it'll be great.

It may even last another two winters.

There you go.

One window down, 58 to go.

When all about you is crumbling, the best thing to do is find solace in

the bottle.

HE CHUCKLES

Thousands of bottles, in fact.

I'd buy the chateau for this place.

Look at all these bottles.

And they're all handmade.

In here, this one is completely different from this one,

which is completely different from that. They're all individual.

A tour of the cellar reveals that the estate once produced vast

quantities of brandy and cider.

They have a local brew here, it's called calva.

It's like an apple brandy.

I can see these bottles, cleaned out, filled with calva,

cork in the top, dipped in red wax and set back on the shelf.

And I'll gradually work my way through.

I'll get into such trouble.

While he's down there...

..Dick spots something else that might be useful.

Look in there. That barrel is in amazing condition.

Dick has always been a big fan of smoked food

and these huge wine barrels could make a perfect smokers.

I think I've done my first smoker probably 30 years ago out of an oil

drum. And I've been doing it ever since.

All you have to do is put a smoke box outside it,

put some smoke into it and you get smoked food.

He decides then and there to start a whole new industry at the chateau.

We've got lots of work to do.

Now all he needs is a stove to make the smoke.

I just love the fact that every time you come to the attic,

you find something.

That's almost too pretty.

I'll use that probably as a stove, as opposed to, for a smoker.

Dick soon finds something more spartan from the 1950s.

It looks like it's meant to be smoking food.

And this is so ridiculous.

Hold on.

A-ha ha-ha!

It's better than that!

It opens and shuts to regulate the amount of smoke.

I thought I was going to have to build something to do that.

Way to go.

I've done lots of different types of smokers. This is a cold smoker.

I have a lovely oak barrel and I'm going to cut it up.

Then, beside that, I've got my little stove and there's a pipe

going between the two.

In the little stove there's a fire box and the smoke in there is warm.

But by the time it's moved down the pipe and into my barrel,

it'll be cool.

This may look like something from a bathroom to you.

But it's now a very important kitchen apparatus.

Fills this, everything in there get smoked

and all my excess smoke goes out at the top.

You can put cheese in here.

You know, all sorts of salamis and meats and things can go in here.

And they'll get smoke flavouring without them cooking.

They certainly have enough cheeses to choose from.

There are over 300 different types in France.

Every region has its own variety.

Here we go.

Half a mile away, a family run dairy specialises in Camembert.

Firing up the smoker is a perfect excuse for a visit and to parle a

bit of Franglais with the neighbours.

Nous habitons pres d'ici.

Um... Nous, er... Nous avons une, er...une place qui...

Oh, pardon, madam.

Pour la fait...

Join in any time, sweetheart.

Peut-etre nous, er, fumee...

..notre fromage aussi.

I think they understood what's going on.

C'est bon. Vous avez le plus grand. Oui!

I was thinking what we could do is keep one to the side as a control,

smoke two and then eat them at different stages and see what they

taste like? I'm up for that.

We are going to be so full of cheese.

Au revoir.

Bye-bye. Thank you.

Dick and Angel hope to serve smoked cheese at their wedding.

By then, they will have perfected the art, using shavings from the

apple trees to add flavour.

This is the subtle way of lighting.

We didn't have to build the smoker, cos we had the rest of the chateau to do.

But it was easy. Darling, it will be six hours of gentle smoking.

Followed by 24 hours of waiting, followed by cheese.

Phwoar! Oh, man.

Yummy, yummy.

The cheese is ready to serve,

along with quince jelly from the orchard.

Mmm.

Mmm. That works, baby.

When you sit down at a table that's got your food on it,

you think to yourself, "Oh, life's good."

It's beautiful.

Dick and Angel have been seduced by the French way of life.

But it's a pace that will have to change if they want their chateau to

be ready for their wedding.

Next time... If you're going to make holes in your chateau,

you might as well make them nice ones.

..Dick and Angel go construction crazy.

Can I help?

But time is running out.

They've got the grand salon, the petit salon, the dining room,

the upstairs kitchen, the downstairs kitchen, the utility room...

Sometimes, things don't quite go according to plan.

HUMMING

Merci, monsieur.

What a monumental pain in the arse.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media