Northiam station restoration on the Kent and East Sussex Railway - Challenge Anneka

I just posted a link for the Challenge Anneka episode when she was challenged to restore and reopen Northiam station here:


I was curious if there any folk here on the forum that were involved in the restoration and what "actually happened" as while it would be nice to believe that Anneka managed to source all the building materials, equipment, manpower, finding a steam train etc. over a weekend to get the station ready and complete her "challenge" It would be interesting to know how the restoration was planned and how much of it was just made for the cameras.

No, but I remember watching it on telly (that blokes boom was always getting in the way !)

Can't commet on that particular episode, but there was a Challenge Anneka done at a city farm in Sheffield not far from where I worked. Planning had been going on for months, we worked with the local electricity company and were made aware some weeks in advance that no work would be carried out for us during the filming as resources were diverted to the farm. Nothing on TV is as it seems, it looks good, but there is nothing sorted on the day, it is all planned far in advance.

I read somewhere that much of the work had to be redone after she’d departed…

She "created" a fishing lake for disabled people in Telford. Turned out, IIRC, there was a problem with land ownership (or something like that) and the whole project was dismantled. Pretty sure that episode does not appear in the repeats. A long time ago, hope I've got this correct.

Imagine being the soldier who got told "Corpral, Miss Rice needs some assistance, she need someone to cut her clothes off her".. He looked somewhat bemused..