8.3/1053 votesLoading...#1 - County Derry: Shipping Container House
Season 14 Episode 4 - Aired 9/24/2014
A young farmer and architect in Northern Ireland hopes to make a home out of four large shipping containers welded together to form a giant cross. Patrick Bradley has come up with a pounds 100k house design to be built out of four 45-foot shipping containers, welded together to form a giant cross and cantilevered over the top of a stream at a beautiful secluded spot on the family farm. His mum is hoping his new home will get Patrick a girlfriend. But his tiny budget is soon under threat.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.1/1019 votesLoading...
#2 - Yorkshire: The 14th Century Castle
Season 7 Episode 1 - Aired 2/28/2007
Every Englishman’s home is his castle but for Francis Shaw this is quite literally true. He and his wife, Karen, and their two young daughters, bought the ruins of a 14th Century castle in Yorkshire and took on the remarkable challenge of turning a pile of stones into a beautiful home. Surrounded by rolling green fields, the location is idyllic; however, the castle itself was little more than four crumbling walls.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.1/1042 votesLoading...
#3 - Worcestershire: The Cave House
Season 16 Episode 4 - Aired 9/30/2015
Kevin McCloud follows the progress of 37-year-old Angelo Mastropietro, as he transforms a damp, dark and abandoned cave in Worcestershire. Having recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, Angelo wants to create a retreat to help him cope with the news and become a 21st century caveman. He has a budget of pounds 100,000 and plans to almost single-handedly carve, cut and drill into the hillside to make the cave comfortable for contemporary living. However, there is no manual for a project of this kind, and the unique challenge soon becomes an obsession.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.1/1015 votesLoading...#4 - Billingshurst, Sussex Revisit 2023
Season 24 Episode 8 - Aired 12/6/2023
In 2019, Olaf and Fritha set out to build on a tricky slice of land in West Sussex, boxed in by an A-road and trainline. Kevin McCloud returns to see how their triangular triumph is faring.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.0/1013 votesLoading...
#5 - Revisited - Sussex: The Woodsmans Cottage
Season 5 Episode 8 - Aired 10/26/2005
Kevin returns to see how Ben Law's woodsman's cottage has changed. The house has bedded down into its landscaped kitchen garden and his life has changed in unexpected ways.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.0/1039 votesLoading...
#6 - Pembrokeshire: Low-Impact House
Season 17 Episode 6 - Aired 10/26/2016
No description available
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 8.0/1042 votesLoading...
#7 - Revisited – Herefordshire: The Recycled Timber-Framed House
Season 18 Episode 9 - Aired 11/1/2017
Following the work of Ed and Rowena Waghorn as they continue to build a handcrafted, five-bedroom house on an eight acre smallholding in Herefordshire, 10 years in the making. Progress on the build was slow as Ed decided to do most of the work himself, and after four years the house was still a shell. Now, years later, is it possible this house may finally become a medieval masterpiece?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/1027 votesLoading...#8 - North Devon
Season 20 Episode 6 - Aired 10/9/2019
Edward and Hazel plan a shining white art deco lighthouse on a rugged beautiful clifftop. But almost immediately their wildly optimistic plan runs into trouble.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
8.0/107 votesLoading...#9 - Newhaven Revisit 2024
Season 25 Episode 6 - Aired 10/30/2024
On a nostalgic revisit to the first ever Grand Design, from back in 1999, Kevin finds out if Tim and Jules are still flying high in their timber-framed home on the cliffs above Newhaven
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1020 votesLoading...
#10 - Wales: The Isolated Cottage
Season 2 Episode 4 - Aired 8/7/2001
An isolated hilltop in the Brecon Beacons might seem an inhospitable place for a couple's first home. But Adrian and Corinna both grew up in the area, and the ruined farmhouse they chose to restore had been in Adrian's family for generations. The site's lack of mains water and electricity gave them no qualms. True, the track up the hill was often inaccessible in winter. But the landscape was beautiful and they both felt they belonged there
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1013 votesLoading...
#11 - Revisited - Buckinghamshire: The Inverted-Roof House
Season 4 Episode 3 - Aired 2/4/2004
In November 2001, Tom and Judy demolished a bungalow and started building an infinitely more ambitious house. Designed on different levels, with glass walls and exposed steelwork, it was to be a miraculous piece of engineering, giving the couple and their two young children a beautiful, technologically advanced home. Tom appointed himself project manager—a job that proved to be more challenging than he had expected. Grand Designs 3 followed the first 16 months of the build. As Grand Designs 4 goes on air, how close is it to completion?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1017 votesLoading...
#12 - Cambridge: The Cambridgeshire Eco Home
Season 7 Episode 10 - Aired 5/2/2007
Kelly and Masoko Neville set about building not just a spectacular oak frame and straw bale house, but a whole new way of life in the Cambridgeshire Fens. Kelly is a carpenter by trade and has always dreamed of building an eco friendly home with his own hands. This highly sustainable house, sitting in harmony with nature and its surroundings, will become the base for Kelly and Masoko's new self-sufficient life where they will produce their own food and energy from the land.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1041 votesLoading...
#13 - The Derelict Water Tower
Season 12 Episode 5 - Aired 10/17/2012
Kevin McCloud marks the 100th episode with one of the programme's most ambitious projects to date. Leigh Osborne and Graham Voce want to convert and extend a landmark 150-year-old water tower in central London into a luxury home. Grade II-listed, derelict and with 6ft-thick walls, it's a huge challenge for the pair, who also plan to build two structures at the base - a lift shaft connected by a series of glass tunnels, and a modern living space. The result will be a four-bedroom property over nine floors, complete with a room at the top offering spectacular 360 degree views across the capital.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1039 votesLoading...
#14 - South Cornwall: Steam Bending House
Season 17 Episode 3 - Aired 10/5/2016
Kevin McCloud meets Tom and Danielle Raffield, whose lifelong passion has been steam-bending wood. They've used the technique to create extraordinary furniture and lighting, but now plan to use it on a larger scale. In an attempt to escape the confines of their tiny gamekeeper's lodge, they have decided to build a wavy wooden house in South Cornwall, completed with curved cladding, twisted furniture and interior walls covered with weathered timber. With a £100,000 budget, the pair have decided to do a lot of the building themselves, and Kevin is on hand to discover whether they're up to the challenge.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.9/1024 votesLoading...
#15 - East Devon Revisited
Season 19 Episode 7 - Aired 10/31/2018
Kevin returns to Devon to meet Kevin McCabe, who wanted to build one of the biggest houses ever on Grand Designs, out of mud. Seven years after it began, the cob castle is complete.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/1021 votesLoading...
#16 - The Water-Works, Derbyshire
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 2/19/2003
The 1930s derelict water-works Chris and Leanne fell in love with was huge and its design had clearly been inspired by Gilbert Scott's Bankside power station, now better known as the Tate Modern. But nothing would deter the couple. 'We looked at it,' said Chris, 'and saw our home.'
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/1014 votesLoading...
#17 - Revisited: The Woodman's Cottage, Sussex
Season 9 Episode 13 - Aired 4/29/2009
No description available
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.8/1039 votesLoading...
#18 - The Computer Cut House, Herefordshire
Season 12 Episode 2 - Aired 9/19/2012
Kevin meets a pair of civil-partnered university professors, Celia Brackenridge and Diana Woodward. They have enlisted the services of industrial designers who have developed a new computer-assisted method for cutting precision-engineered building blocks, however although the technique may be clever, its creators have never created a building before
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/1043 votesLoading...#19 - South West London: Cemetery Keeper's Lodge
Season 21 Episode 1 - Aired 1/6/2021
Justin plans to restore a neo-Gothic cemetery keeper's lodge and convert its toilet block into a luxury extension complete with a moat and swimming pool. But can he keep his budget under control?
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/1041 votesLoading...#20 - Kent: Converted Barn
Season 21 Episode 2 - Aired 1/13/2021
Kevin McCloud meets Greg and Georgie who are taking on the highly ambitious task of converting a dilapidated, 35-year-old barn in Kent. The build will be a huge challenge involving the painstaking conservation of the existing rotten structure, building a new two-storey internal steel frame and recycling everything they can to stretch their £250,000 budget.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/1030 votesLoading...#21 - West Sussex 2021
Season 22 Episode 2 - Aired 9/8/2021
Master carpenter Olaf faces the biggest challenge of his career: creating an oasis for himself and his partner Fritha on a tiny slice of land in Sussex near a mainline railway and A-road
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
7.8/1021 votesLoading...#22 - South Herefordshire 2023
Season 24 Episode 5 - Aired 11/1/2023
Furniture maker Lucinda wants to construct a beautifully crafted, two-storey, highly insulated timber home in the woodland of South Herefordshire on a very modest budget, and without using heavy machinery.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/1019 votesLoading...
#23 - Surrey: Customised German Kit House
Season 4 Episode 2 - Aired 1/28/2004
David and Greta loved their home, a modernist structure in Surrey that they had built themselves almost 40 years ago. It was filled with things they'd chosen over the years—design classics, mementoes, David's paintings. But that house was falling apart and had to come down. Meanwhile, they had lost their hearts to a German post-and-beam house, designed by architect Peter Huf and available as a customised kit.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/109 votesLoading...
#24 - Peckham: The Sliding Glass Roof House
Season 5 Episode 2 - Aired 4/13/2005
When Monty Ravenscroft and Clare Loewe began looking for a house to buy in London they soon realised that the only affordable option was to build one themselves. They snapped up a dirt cheap slither of land in Peckham at an auction only to be told it was too small to put a house on. Undeterred, three years ago, engineering whiz Monty began building an extraordinary experimental bungalow that filled the site to bursting point.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
- 7.7/1012 votesLoading...
#25 - Revisited - Surrey- The Victorian Threshing Barn
Season 8 Episode 10 - Aired 3/19/2008
Kevin McCloud revisits Philip Trail and his wife Angela who moved to stress-free Surrey and renovated a 150-year-old threshing barn after Philip was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
Director: N/A
Writer: N/A
The Best Episodes of Grand Designs
Every episode of Grand Designs ranked from best to worst. Let's dive into the Best Episodes of Grand Designs!
British television series which features unusual and often elaborate architectural homebuilding projects.
Genre:Documentary
Network:Channel 4
Best Episodes Summary
"County Derry: Shipping Container House" is the best rated episode of "Grand Designs". It scored 8.3/10 based on 53 votes. Directed by N/A and written by N/A, it aired on 9/24/2014. This episode scored 0.2 points higher than the second highest rated, "Yorkshire: The 14th Century Castle".