Seascale’s newly refurbished old church hall is set to appear on a Channel 4 TV show.
The formerly dilapidated St Cuthbert’s Church Hall, on Sella Bank, has been ambitiously transformed into a family home and 14 bed holiday let by husband and wife duo Louisa Wedderburn and John Robson.
Channel 4 reached out to the pair part way through their restoration of the property and asked to feature their journey on The Great British Home Restoration.
The show is presented by architect Charlie Luxton and follows couples and families who breathe new life into unique historic buildings that weren’t designed to be lived in.
Louisa, John and their two year old son Ted formerly lived in London, but now live full-time in the basement of the old hall which they converted into a three bedroom home.
John, who previously worked as an antique book seller with some experience in renovating flats, bought the hall in 2020 whilst hunting for a Cumbrian home to renovate.
Louisa said: “The building is right in the heart of the village and absolutely everyone either went to brownies, ballet, piano recitals or had a polio jab or went to a jumble sale here.
“But it’s been completely dilapidated and falling down over the last 10 to 15 years and John was looking for a property in Cumbria in 2020 and he ended up buying the hall that October.
“I was working from home when he bought it and he came through to see me and said I just bought a church hall in Cumbria for £80,000 and I said you’ve done what! So it did come as a bit of a shock!”
But the pair’s renovation plans were suddenly put on hold when Louisa fell pregnant and John was later diagnosed and treated for stage three throat cancer while filming for the show was taking place.
She added: “It was most stressful when John’s treatment started because the film crew were running to deadline to finish the series, but they were really respectful of us and let us set the pace.
“So it has been quite challenging but John finished his treatment in January and he’s been in remission ever since and he’s had some amazing treatment.
“We officially finished renovating six months ago but we’re just fixing up some leaks in the roof and we’ve got our first guests coming at the end of February, so we’re really on the home stretch now.
“We’ve also been on a tight shoestring with it, but it’s really starting to pay off and we’re getting people showing interest in staying.”
The pair said one of their biggest renovation aims was to make sure the building retained the feeling of being the village’s old church hall.
She said: “We did want to retain the feeling of it being the church hall, so we kept the stage area and as many of the original features as we could but we’ve put a top floor in to transform it from being just one huge open space.
“We uncovered a lot during the renovation including original pitch pine floors that are around 111 years old, so we didn’t even have to redo the floors.
“But the village has also been so supportive of us. When we gave the outside a lick of pale green paint everyone started saying oh my god the village looks completely different and that it had lifted the area.
“That felt like a real achievement because it is a really amazing village here and the most wonderful place to live, we just love it here.”
Louisa added that it was also John’s first time taking on a large scale renovation – making the advice from Channel 4 extra valuable.
She said: “The hall was a real building site when they started filming but it was amazing having Charlie Luxton the presenter on site, he gave us some great tips.
“We had to put in a large fire escape staircase because building regulations wanted it and it was heart breaking, it stalled everything because it was £28,000.
“It was a horrible big grey thing and Charlie was on site at the time and he said, why don’t you just paint it a really crazy colour? So we chose electric blue and now everyone knows us as the house with a crazy blue staircase which is really fun.
“But while it was all stressful we did have a ball doing it and it was affirming to know that other people thought the renovation was a good ideas and that we weren’t totally crazy for taking it on.”
The family’s episode is set to air on January 17 at 9pm on More Four.
Louisa added: “We were actually real fans of the first series, so we were really delighted to be able to do it.
“It was also quite funny filming in Seascale as I’m not sure it happens a lot here, but there’s actually a place up from us called The Herding Neb that was featured on Homes Under the Hammer and all the filming happened at the same time so there were film crews on the beach with them one week and a film crew with us the next.
“I think we’re both excited and nervous for it to air, although I think John’s more excited than me to see it as I was quite daunted by being on camera.
“But I hope when people see the hall all finished in the episode that they won’t think we’re crazy for having done it without much experience!”
