living the good life
MARION MCMULLEN looks at celebs who have made themselves at home down on the farm
1 Former Strictly Come Dancing champion Kelvin Fletcher’s new life in the country is featured in new BBC series Kelvin’s Big Farming Adventure. The 37-year-old former Emmerdale actor and his wife Liz Marsland moved from their Oldham home to a farm in the Peak District with their two young children Marnie and Milo. The 120-acre farm features an 18th-century cottage, outbuildings, 20 sheep, three pigs and three alpacas.
2 Jeremy Clarkson turned to the land with his Diddly Squat Farm in the Cotswolds. He brought it in 2008 and it was run by a villager, but the TV presenter decided to see if he could run it himself in 2019, as featured in his Amazon series. The success of the show has seen people flock to the farm shop to buy products such as ‘Cow Juice’, rapeseed oil, chutneys and jams.
3 Actress Nicole Kidman and her country singer husband Keith Urban, right, bought their farmhouse in Bunja Hill, Australia in 2008 and the 111 acres are home to alpacas, chickens and Black Angus cows.
4 American chat show legend Oprah Winfrey owns a farm on the side of a dormant volcano on the island of Maui in Hawaii that grows more than 100 different crops of fruit and veg.
5 Guardians Of The Galaxy and Jurasssic world star Chris Pratt calls a farm on San Juan Island in Washington home. He keeps sheep, chickens and other livestock and his wife Katherine Schwarzenegger once gave him two pigs for his birthday. He called them Tim and Faith and said thery were “the best birthday present ever”.
6 Blurb assist-turnedcheese maker Alex James lives with his family on a 200-acre farm in the Cotswolds. He moved to the farm from London in 2003 and now makes cheese and runs a food and music festival called the Big Feastival.
7 Countryfile’s Matt Baker grew up on a his family’s 100-acre hill farm 1,000ft above sea level in the Durham Dales. He brought out a book called A Year On Our Farm and the former One Show presenter also appeared last year in Channel 4 series Matt Baker: Our Farm in the Dales. Matt says: “The countryside has made me who I am.”
8 Celebrity chef Martha Stewart owns a 153-acre farm in Bedford, New York, where she keeps chickens, bees and cows. There is also a vegetable garden, fruit trees and stables, and since 2007, it has been a National Wildlife Federation Certified Wildlife Habitat.
9 JLS singer JB Gill lives on a family farm near Kent with his wife Chloe and their children Ace and Chiara Sapphire. He also presented the BBC children’s show Down On The Farm and turned to rearing pigs, turkeys and chickens when the boy band broke up.
10 Star Wars actor Hayden Christensen bought a farm in his native Canada in the late 2000s. The farm is in north of Toronto and Hayden has called it “a great escape”.