Telford replica

The coveted first prize of The Big Breakfast's 1994 Housey Housey competition was an exact replica of the programme's East London hq, right down to the handpainted fried eggs on the kitchen walls.The eggs were barely dry when presenters Gaby Roslin and Keith Chegwin handed over the luxury Beazer home to winner Gillian Baker from Grimsby in May 1994. Valued at £100,000, the two-bedroomed property is in Telford.

After being approached by Channel 4, Beazer Homes subsidiary Second City Homes built the house in just 59 days. The firm, which admits to having a good working relationship with Wrekin Council and the Commission for New Towns, cleared the site on 19 April, the same day as signing the contract with Channel 4.

Second City's architect Mason Richard Partnership and md Gordon Marvin took photographs and measurements of the original Big Breakfast House prior to the contract signing, from which they compiled working drawings. No original plans of the house, converted from two of three adjoining former lockkeepers' cottages, were available.

'Fine tuning of the drawings was carried out by site agent Ron Spence and our development coordinator,' explains Philip Williams, the company's construction director. And everything has been made to match the original house, from bathroom fittings to the open staircase and uPVC window frames.

Second City carried out a certain amount of background work before the contract was signed, including the materials scheduling, and is using subcontractors it employs on a nearby site where it is constructing 90 houses.

Although Channel 4 is the client did not paying for the house, explains Williams, 'just for the soft landscaping, including the planting of an orchard, and the construction of a pool at the front of the house.'

So what did Beazer Homes get out of the deal? Well, it was a very good promotional vehicle as in addition to numerous television mentions since the competition was launched in April 1994, the Beazer Home logo appeared prominently on all of the 11 million nationally distributed games cards. And faced with a promotional opportunity like this, suppliers were understandably 'helpful'.

Redland Bricks provided the 26,000 bricks needed and Marley the 16,000 roof tiles, both of which were chosen to colour match the weathered bricks and tiles of the original Lock Keepers Cottage. British Gas installed gas central heating free of charge.

Like the original Big Breakfast House, the replica comprises only two-thirds of the overall building.

But whereas the left hand (third) Lock Keepers Cottage is linked to the main house, and contains a camera store and make-up area, Second City has built a second individual dwelling at Telford.

The sale of this smaller (but three-bedroomed) house will go some way towards offsetting the undisclosed construction costs.

The contractor started digging the foundations for the two-storey structure on 19 April, and the gang of six brickies and three labourers proceeded with the traditional brick and block construction soon after. By 2 May, they had fitted the first floor timber joist, and 11 May saw the topping out of the brickwork.

The roof was tiled by the 17th and the building handed over to the client exactly a month later (17 June), a week ahead of the original programme, after Channel 4's supervising architect Hickton Madeley completed the final inspection and issued the Practical Completion Certificate.

'One of the biggest challenges was applying the various colours of paint to internal walls,' says Williams. 'As in the original house, we had to use special scenery paint and we found that because of colour variations, any touching up meant we had to repaint an entire wall.

Telford Big Breakfast House photos courtesy of Mark Evison