Restoration Rescue

Across Northern Ireland, the landscape is scattered with buildings falling into ruin - but thankfully there are people out there on a mission to bring them back to life.

In this brand new series we follow award-winning architect Patrick Bradley, as he meets those who are taking on the challenge of restoring the buildings of our past.

Patrick meets a couple in east Belfast who are looking to futureproof their lives by downsizing from a large family house to a small 19th century gate lodge, with plans to restore and extend it into their dream home.

While building work on the gate lodge gets underway, Patrick finds out more about what life would have been like for those that lived there and about the history of Craigavon House, the larger property that the gate lodge once served. He discovers more about the big house's most famous owner, the first prime minister of Northern Ireland, James Craig.

With planners to contend with and delays with building supplies, it's a race to get the work completed for the couple's ambitious Christmas deadline.

Across Northern Ireland our landscape is scattered with buildings falling into ruin but thankfully there are people out there on a mission to bring them back to life.

Patrick Bradley is in the seaside village of Donaghadee to meet a couple who have ambitious plans to transform a disused high street bank into a modern home fit for 21st century living.

Spanning three floors, turning this listed building from a commercial property into a liveable space is a mammoth undertaking, including the challenge of figuring out what to do with the original walk-in safe.

Patrick finds out how the bank came to be established in the village and how banking has evolved over the last 100 years. He also meets with the last couple to live and work in the bank over 40 years ago.

This is a big property with big potential and a couple hoping to reimagine what the high street could be.

Patrick travels to the shores of Lough Neagh to meet a husband and wife who plan to sympathetically restore an old fisherman's cottage back to its former glory.

The couple currently live just a short walk from the property and purchased the cottage after the death of their elderly friend and neighbour, Phyllis, who was born and lived all her life in the cottage.

The couple have great sentimental attachment to the home of their friend and want to maintain as much of the character as possible, but this proves to be a challenge as the fabric of the cottage has seen better days.

As keen enthusiasts of vernacular architecture, Patrick takes the couple to the Ulster Folk Museum to learn about what life would have been like for the fishermen that once lived in the cottage. And they turn to science to try to discover when the cottage would have originally been built.

But despite all their care and attention, a visit from an inspector threatens to derail the whole project.

It's Patrick's turn to take on a restoration project of his own as he challenges himself to transform a derelict cottage and barn on his family farm on the outskirts of Maghera.

Patrick knows from family stories that the last person to live in the cottage was his great-great uncle, over 100 years ago. Since then the buildings have served as a storage space and provided shelter for the animals on the farm.

But Patrick has big plans. Taking all the skills he has developed as an architect over the years, he wants to convert these buildings back into spaces for his family to enjoy while also leaving his creative mark on the landscape of his homeplace.

Having so much family history tied up in the fabric of these buildings, Patrick feels under pressure to get this right. Not just for himself, but for the generations of his family before him and for generations to come.

But with family legacy on the line one big question remains; will his father approve?