Some of Malcolm Iredale’s earliest memories are of helping renovate houses.

Growing up near Penrith, he began learning the family trade aged nine alongside his father Keith.  “We would work on doing up family dwellings and I remember helping my father with the joinery and block and brick work,” he says.

He continued to pursue construction as an adult, qualifying as an architect and working for a practice in Bradford before setting up his own business 25 years ago. Today, Carrock Homes - which is named after the fell which can be seen from the window of its offices in Mungrisdale - carries out high-end refurbishments and restoration of many heritage buildings, as well as its own small developments in north Cumbria.

Keith still takes an active interest and Malcolm’s wife Gillian is also a director of the business, which employs 12 people. “In the beginning we found that a lot of our architectural clients were requiring good builders to do their work,” says Malcolm.  “We employed one or two to do small projects which got bigger and bigger and now we almost exclusively deal with our own architectural clients. We offer a full design and build service dealing with high quality renovations and refurbishments in North Cumbria. We're working with the type of people who are focused on the quality of service that you give them. They trust us implicitly to do the work and manage it and communicate with them and do a good job and we try to give them the highest quality work that we can.”

In Cumbria:

Its projects include barn conversions, characterful extensions and new builds across the region, requiring skills such as heritage stonework or hand crafting original oak beams.

The company’s high-quality work earned it the award for the best example of sustainable development at the Federation of Master Builders' National Master Builder Awards in 2021.

However, finding those with the skills required to carry out such careful work is not easy.

"We've changed the employment package considerably to try to attract people from elsewhere to come into the county, things like working towards a four-day a week,” says Malcolm. The business also offers health and wellbeing packages and covers some of the fuel costs of its employees. Over the years Carrock Homes has also employed a number of apprentices - many of whom have gone onto set up their own practices - and is in the process of working with local colleges to take on more.

Malcolm says new projects include three barn conversions at How Hill, near Penrith, including a four-bed Dutch Barn and a five or six bed conversion of bastle - a fortified home built to defend against border reivers. This will add to similar projects it has completed in the past, including a terrace of four homes in Greystoke.

"I think one of the ways forward has got to be the property development,” says Malcolm. “We're going to develop the buildings in-house and market them as bespoke developments.

“No two days are ever the same and I think that’s why people love working for us. You may design something, but you know for a fact those designs are going to change and develop as you live with the building. You will find new heritage features or take the plaster off a wall and there's a window built behind the plasterwork. It's very exciting.”