Scotland's Home of the Year 2023: Victorian renovation in Edinburgh named winner of BBC series

The Old Train House – a Victorian renovation in Edinburgh that was once a railway station – has been crowned the winner of 2023’s Scotland’s Home of the Year.

The winning property, announced in the series finale shown on BBC Scotland on Monday night, has undergone a remarkable transformation, made all the more challenging by the timing of the renovation project, which was carried out during Covid lockdowns.

Home to Christina and Ben Blundell, the former Bonnington commuter railway station was derelict and empty for ten years before the couple transformed the property.

The SHOTY judges, interior designers Anna Campbell-Jones and Banjo Beale, and architect and lecturer Michael Angus, picked the winner from a shortlist of six finalists from across Scotland.

The Old Train House is Scotland's Home of the Year

Restoring The Old Train House was a labour of love for Christina and Ben.

Christina said: “When we saw it up for sale, we thought we’d pop in to have a look, and it was worse than we’d expected.”

Ben added: “It was a wreck, boarded up and the back door had been kicked in by squatters. It was one of those place that makes you think ‘who would want to buy that?’"

But Christina said: “We knew it had potential. It didn’t make sense as a home because it had never been one, so we had to think about that.”

Scotland’s Home of the Year - Series 5. The Old Train House, Edinburgh. Photo: Kirsty Anderson

She added: “Neither of us are designers or builders or architects, or had a large budget. We just had a vision for what this building could be for us.

“We got the building warrant through for all the alterations the day before lockdown in 2020, so for months we were in this, quite honestly, awful and depressing house at a time when you couldn’t leave your house and it felt a world away from being a home.”

The finished house is something of a Tardis, with a single storey cottage front at street level.

This level features the living area, kitchen and office, while stone stairs lead to the middle floor, which hosts the family bathroom. The bottom floor has an en-suite master bedroom, and childrens’ bedrooms.

Scotland’s Home of the Year - Series 5. The Old Train House, Edinburgh. Photo: Kirsty Anderson

Vintage and antique pieces have been used throughout to zone what would have been a thoroughfare for passengers. The herringbone floor, exposed pipework and industrial vents, and the use of subway tiles in the kitchen were all used as nods to the building's industrial past.

The bedroom, formerly the station’s waiting room, is finished with vintage trunks referencing a more glamorous era of travel. The outside space, created from the former platform, has become a suntrap oasis in the city. The walls still feature graffiti and the garden’s raised beds were created out of railway sleepers.

The Old Train House scored the maximum ten points from all three judges in the regional final.

Campbell Jones said she believed the Edinburgh home was a very worthy winner of the prestigious title, adding: “The Old Train House expresses the ultimate in adaptation and reuse, themes that are so important these days – the whole building was upcycled, transformed from a sad ruined train station to a very real home.

Scotland’s Home of the Year - Series 5. The Old Train House, Edinburgh. Photo: Kirsty Anderson

“I loved the balance of respect for the history of the building, clever use of bargain vintage finds and appropriate materials both for the age of the building and for its function as warm, fun family home.”

Scotland’s Home Of The Year is available to view on BBC iPlayer.