Helen and Mark had always dreamed of owning a Georgian house but knew they couldn't afford the genuine article. So they decided to build their own. They bought a large plot of land in Surrey, surrounded by trees, and commissioned an architect who specialised in conservation architecture to design it.

Modelled on the Regency villas of the 1820s, their design had five reception rooms on the ground floor, a sweeping central staircase, four large bedrooms upstairs and a guest wing designed to look like a coach-house. Grand Regency features included a great bow window in the dining room, an oval orangery, a square portico (columned porch) and a terrace with a classical balustrade.

Grand Designs Season 2 Episodes...

• s02e01 - Farnham: The Regency Villa
• s02e02 - Sussex: The New England House
• s02e03 - Huddersfield: The Wool Mill
• s02e04 - Wales: The Isolated Cottage
• s02e05 - The Cruciform House, Berkshire
• s02e06 - Birmingham: The Community Self-Build
• s02e07 - London: The Jewel Box
• s02e08 - Devon: The Derelict Barns
• s02e09 - Revisited - Birmingham: The Community Self-Build
• s02e10 - Revisited - Wales: The Isolated Cottage
• s02e11 - Revisited - Devon: The Derelict Barns
• s02e12 - Revisited - Lambourn: The Cruciform House
• s02e13 - The Co-Op: Revisited
• s02e14 - The Isolated Cottage: Revisited
• s02e15 - The Dilapidated Georgian House: Revisited
• s02e16 - The Water Tower: Revisited
• s02e17 - The Derelict Barns: Revisited

Grand Designs Show Summary

Grand Designs is a Channel 4 TV series covering unusual architectural house-building projects, presented by Kevin McCloud.

The properties featured in the series vary wildly from homes underground to converted water towers, with the only common factor being that they're all rather unusual or extravagant in some way.