Country House Rescue is an observational documentary series which airs on British terrestrial television channel, Channel 4. The series has also aired on BBC Canada, ABC1 in Australia and Living in New Zealand and in South Africa.
In each episode, an expert visits a struggling country house and tries to turn its fortunes by giving advice and suggestions to the owner/s. The first four series saw Ruth Watson in this role. The fifth series, airing from June 2012, saw Simon Davis take the role.
The series premiered in December 2008, and gained audiences of up to 2.7 million on its first run. In March 2009, it was reported that a second series of Country House Rescue featuring Ruth Watson had been commissioned by Channel 4, to be filmed in HD. The second series was originally planned to return for an extended 14 episode run, in early 2010, however 3 episodes (all revisits of houses previously featured) were brought forward, and aired during November and December 2009 as a mini-series. The second series of new episodes aired throughout Spring 2010, and the third series aired throughout Spring 2011. From August 2011, a further series of revisits of houses previously featured aired, though the series began with a previously unaired episode from series two. However, Watson stated on her own website that she would not present any more series of Country House Rescue in the future. In November 2011, Channel 4 announced that Simon Davis would present the 4th series to be broadcast in Spring 2012.
The series is narrated by Hugh Bonneville.
Famous quotes containing the words country, house and/or rescue:
“If you are obliged to neglect any thing, let it be your chemistry. It is the least useful and the least amusing to a country gentleman of all the ordinary branches of science.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“My dwelling was small, and I could hardly entertain an echo in it; but it seemed larger for being a single apartment and remote from neighbors. All the attractions of a house were concentrated in one room; it was kitchen, chamber, parlor, and keeping-room; and whatever satisfaction parent or child, master or servant, derive from living in a house, I enjoyed it all.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“To rescue from oblivion even a fragment of a language which men have used and which is in danger of being lost—that is to say, one of the elements, whether good or bad, which have shaped and complicated civilization—is to extend the scope of social observation and to serve civilization.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)