46 homebuilding.co.uk
I got an architect to draw up every detail of an Irish
box sash window as a scale drawing and gave it to
the joinery shop. Their initial reaction was: ‘That’s
not going to work’. But it did, perfectly.”Landscaping makeover
Even the gardens have been given a historically
sympathetic makeover. “When we finished the
restoration, we found an 1845 OS map that showed
an outline of the garden. So we recreated it, with box
hedging, herb borders, an orchard and lots of trees.”
A keen gardener, Richard and his family grow all
their own vegetables and fruit on site, keep hens and
collect honey from the roof-top beehives.
It’s clear that decades after first dreaming of
restoring the ancestral home as a young boy,
Richard is a happy man.“All my life I’ve talked
about restoring the castle,” he reflects. “Everyone
said: ‘Don’t be ridiculous — how will you heat it?
How will you furnish it?’ It was the family joke. But
the more people tell me I can’t do something, the
more I decide I will do it. Restoring the castle was
something I had an ambition to do all my life.”oN-sItE BUsINEss
the lime plant set up
on site to supply the
renovationis now
a familybusiness,
roundtower Lime (www.
roundtowerlime.com).News