Escape to the Country Season 18, Episode 9: Somerset

1

Wye Valley

Jonnie Irwin's property search is in the Wye Valley, where he helps an entrepreneurial couple with a £650,000 budget find a dream home which allows them to build a rural business.

45 min

2

Northumberland

Ginny Buckley is in Northumberland with an adventurous couple of empty nesters who want their £500,000 budget to buy them a country house with land to earn an income from running a yurt campsite.

45 min

3

Wiltshire

Jonnie Irwin is in Wiltshire helping a couple with a £650,000 budget to go the distance and make the 500-mile move from a Scottish city to the English countryside.

45 min

4

North Yorkshire

Ginny Buckley is house-searching in rural North Yorkshire with a couple who, on their £800,000 budget, want to return to their Yorkshire roots. Their grand plan is to combine country life with their love of cats by running a cattery.

45 min

5

Norfolk

Ginny Buckley is helping a house-hunting couple with a £900,000 budget move back from France and find an impressive rural retreat in the Norfolk countryside.

45 min

6

Devon

In Devon, the pressure is on for Margherita Taylor as she helps a hardworking house buyer with a £300,000 budget and a tight deadline to relocate before the new job starts.

45 min

7

Hampshire

Jules Hudson is in Hampshire with a dynamic couple who love the outdoors and have £650,000 to buy a property that gives them the best of both countryside and coast.

45 min

8

Shropshire

Ginny Buckley is in Shropshire house searching for the perfect country retreat with a couple who have a £450,000 budget to make the move back from France to reconnect with the British countryside and be part of a village community.

45 min

9

Somerset

Love is in the air on a house hunt full of surprises as Nicki Chapman joins a couple who have £450,000 to find a rural home in Somerset with some income potential in the form of a holiday let.

45 min

10

Devon

Margherita Taylor is helping a couple with a £300,000 budget find a country property which gives them community on their doorstep and a crash pad for their grandchildren to stay during the holidays.

45 min

11

Shropshire

Jonnie Irwin is in Shropshire with a military couple armed with a £500,000 budget and an ambition to enjoy country life with their young daughter.

45 min

12

Dorset

Jules Hudson is in the Dorset countryside with a couple who have an £800,000 budget to buy their first home together.

45 min

13

Worcestershire

Nicki Chapman is in rural Worcestershire helping a couple who have £450,000 to realise their dream of raising their young family in the countryside.

45 min

14

Ceredigion

Alistair Appleton harnesses his positive energy for a house-hunting mission in the Welsh county of Ceredigion, as he helps a couple with a £355,000 budget buy a country home with the potential for a spiritual retreat. Along the way, Alistair heads to Llandysul to meet a dynamic dairy-farming family. They have successfully diversified and now produce a local teifi cheese, as well as a botanical gin, both of which Alistair is keen to sample.

45 min

15

Cornwall

Nicki Chapman heads to Cornwall to help a Croydon-based couple with a £450,000 budget and a love of the great outdoors find their perfect country home. Nicki also discovers how one Cornish farm is running with a national initiative to create a food enterprise zone. She samples first-hand how Norton Barton Farm hopes to become a food artisan village for local producers.

45 min

16

North Yorkshire

Jules Hudson helps a pair of expats who are raring to return to their roots in North Yorkshire and have a £700,000 budget to find their ideal rural home. While in the region, Jules gets into the hot seat of a First World War fighter plane when he learns about Yorkshire's vital role in aviation heritage.

45 min

17

South Devon

Alistair Appleton is on a house-hunting mission in the South Devon countryside with a recently retired couple who have a £540,000 budget to up sticks from Burton upon Trent and relocate to live closer to their daughter.

45 min

18

Northumberland

Jonnie Irwin is house hunting in the Northumberland countryside with a couple wanting to escape busy urban life in Gateshead and who have a £500,000 budget to move three generations of the family into a new rural home that provides them with a peaceful quality of life.

45 min

19

Herefordshire

Jules Hudson is in Herefordshire with an exuberant house-hunting couple who are ready to up sticks from Birmingham and spend £500,000 on a country home that allows them to lead the good life while being close enough to Hereford for regular visits to their daughter.

45 min

20

Yorkshire Dales

Alistair Appleton is in the Yorkshire Dales helping a fitness enthusiast first-time buyer armed with £280,000 and the moral support of his mother find a home where he can run free in the countryside.

45 min

21

Peak District

Nicki Chapman is rural property shopping in the Peak District with a couple who have a £500,000 pound budget to buy their first home together.

45 min

22

Kent

Alistair Appleton is in Kent helping a dynamic international couple with a £1 million pound budget branch out from city life in London, so they can raise their young family in the countryside.

45 min

23

East Devon

Margherita Taylor is on an important house-hunting mission with an intrepid house buyer who has a £340,000 budget and is keen to make the lifestyle leap to the countryside around the Devon/Dorset border that she and her late husband always dreamed of.

45 min

24

Somerset

Nicki Chapman is in the Somerset countryside helping a house-hunting couple with £475,000 to return to their roots and recreate the outdoor lifestyle that they grew up with for their own young children.

45 min

25

Lake District

Alistair Appleton is on a country property hunt in Cumbria with a triathlete couple armed with £400,000. They need a family home for them and their three children before the new school term starts. While in the area, Alistair also visits Stott Park Bobbin Mill, the last working example in the UK, and learns the important role it played supplying a quarter of a million bobbins every week to the Victorian cotton mills of Lancashire.

45 min

26

Forest of Dean

Jonnie Irwin is tasked with a property-searching mission in the Forest of Dean, helping a house-hunting couple with a £475,000 budget find a home to accommodate three generations of their family.

45 min

27

Wiltshire

Nicki Chapman takes to the road in Wiltshire with a couple of motorbike enthusiasts who, with their £650,000 budget, want to find a home that gives them the perfect balance of community and country life. Whilst in the county, Nicki discovers more about out how conservation efforts to plant hedgerow 'corridors' are creating a safe haven for the UK's endangered tree sparrow population.

45 min

28

Somerset

Jules Hudson is on a house-hunting mission in the Somerset countryside with a keen gardening couple who have £700,000 pounds and high hopes of enjoying the county's mild climate.Away from the property search, Jules meets Sally Tuffin, a former London fashion designer turned ceramics artist, and sees how her creative work is inspired by her rural Somerset surroundings.

45 min

29

Pembrokeshire

Jonnie Irwin is in rural Pembrokeshire house hunting with an ambitious couple who have £650,000 to buy not only their first proper home together, but also accommodation for holidaymakers and a horse. Whilst in the area, Jonnie visits Cardigan and meets a pioneering denim jean producer whose high-calibre clothing has made great strides in recreating local jobs as well as keeping alive the denim manufacturing heritage of this area.

45 min

30

New Forest

In the New Forest, Alistair Appleton helps a recently retired couple with a £1million budget and a passion for beekeeping leave suburban life behind to buy a country home close to family. While in the area,Alistair meets one of the specially appointed Crown Keepers, who help manage the 10,000 acres of protected forest here along with herds of fallow deer, which Alistair is lucky enough to see.

45 min

31

North Yorkshire

Alistair Appleton helps a couple find a more relaxing way of life in the North Yorkshire countryside with a £400,000 budget. While in the area, Alistair attempts an adrenalin-fuelled adventure traversing How Stean Gorge on a course of high wire cables.

45 min

32

Cotswolds

Margherita Taylor heads to the Cotswolds with a house-hunting couple who have a £550,000 budget and a dream of swapping coastal life in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, for views of rolling countryside.

45 min

33

Northern Ireland

Nicki Chapman heads to Northern Ireland with a husband and wife who have £500,000 to find a large family home where they can also keep animals and welcome paying guests. Away from the house hunt, Nicki immerses herself in the country's maritime history at the dry dock where RMS Titanic was built.

45 min

34

Dorset

Jules Hudson is in the Dorset countryside to help a couple make the move from Queensland, Australia. With a budget of £450,000 they look forward to enjoying village life in cooler climes. Jules also visits Tout Quarry on the Isle of Portland, now home to a unique sculpture park celebrating the heritage of Portland stone which was used for many of London's historic buildings.

45 min

35

Kent

Nicki Chapman is on a house-hunting mission in the Kent countryside with a strong-minded couple who have a £900,000 budget and completely different views on the style of the large family home they want to buy.

45 min

36

Norfolk

Sonali Shah is house-hunting in the Norfolk countryside with a couple who want their £440,000 budget to buy them a character country property close to the Broads so they can enjoy more time on their boat.

45 min

37

Jurassic Coast

Jonnie Irwin is on the Jurassic Coast helping a creative couple with a £805,000 budget escape their high-pressure jobs and buy a country home from where they can run a luxury camping business.

45 min

38

Northumberland

Alistair Appleton is on a house-hunting mission in the Northumberland countryside with a dynamic couple who are looking for a character stone property with holiday let potential for their £475,000 budget.

45 min

39

Somerset

Nicki Chapman is country property-shopping in Somerset with a couple who have already sold up and are desperate to invest £425,000 in their perfect rural retreat after months of staying with friends.

45 min

40

North Yorkshire

Ginny Buckley heads to North Yorkshire with an intrepid couple who want to escape the city and spend their £800,000 budget on a country property with impressive views and an income potential that will help fund their new lifestyle. Ginny visits the village of Malham where a passionate female blacksmith has forged a place for herself in the county's blacksmithing heritage.

45 min

41

Shropshire

Jonnie Irwin is on an emotional house-hunting journey in Shropshire with a retired civil servant couple who have £450,000 to invest in their dream country home. Along the way, Jonnie heads to Ironbridge Gorge and visits the Coalport China Museum, the historic home of the famous factory which produced beautiful bone china until the 1920s.

45 min

42

Devon

Jules Hudson is in rural Devon with an ambitious couple looking for a large country home and as much acreage as their £1.25 million budget will afford them. While in the area, Jules heads to the banks of the River Otter to find out why beavers have made a surprise reappearance there, having been extinct in the UK for the past five hundred years.

45 min

43

Norfolk

Jonnie Irwin is on a high-energy house-hunt in the Norfolk countryside helping a couple quit their urban life in London and find a character family home with their £400,000 budget. Away from search, Jonnie meets a record-breaking carriage driver whose passengers have included royalty. Under his supervision, Jonnie takes to the reins to try his hand at mastering some carriage-driving skills.

45 min

44

South Wales

Sonali Shah is property-shopping in south Wales with a couple who have a £230,000 budget to move out of Newport and buy their first home so they can raise their young family in the countryside. As the property search gathers pace, Sonali heads to the banks of the River Usk in Newport and learns about the incredible discovery and restoration of a 15th-century ship, a project which now is of international importance.

45 min

45

Scottish Borders

Nicki Chapman is rural property shopping in the Scottish Borders with a couple who want to invest their £850,000 budget in returning to the UK after 20 years of city life in Brussels. Nicki also heads to the Borders town of Innerleithen and visits Robert Smail's Printing Works, which brings to life the age of Victorian letterpress printing.

45 min

46

Monmouthshire

Jules Hudson is tasked with helping a couple who have a £500,000 budget and a dream of leaving their city life in Bristol behind them and finding their perfect country home in Monmouthshire. While in the county, keen archaeologist Jules visits the village of Trellech, where local excavation efforts are unearthing what could be the largest medieval settlement in Wales.

45 min

47

Argyll and Bute

Jonnie Irwin is property hunting in Argyll and Bute with a couple from Ayr who want to invest their £350,000 budget in a property with priceless countryside views. While in the region, Jonnie heads to the shores of Loch Fyne and visits Inveraray Castle, one of Scotland's finest stately homes and ancestral seat of the Dukes of Argyll for the past 300 years.

45 min

48

Forest of Dean

Sonali Shah is on a house-hunting mission in the Forest of Dean helping a couple with a £500,000 budget find a perfect country home that meets their specific demands for the garden. While in the area, Sonali visits Ragmans Lane Farm and discovers how market gardening produces not just organic food, but is also a financial leg-up for small-scale veg growers trying to break into the farming industry.

45 min

49

Shropshire

Alistair Appleton is in rural Shropshire with a couple who hope their £500,000 budget will buy them a shorter commute to work and more quality time together to enjoy the outdoors. Alistair meets Sam Gray, a passionate smallholder, who rears her rare breed pigs ethically and balances the business of farming with raising her young family.

45 min

50

Lincolnshire

Ginny Buckley heads to rural Lincolnshire to help a couple with a £500,000 budget find a country home that they feel a strong connection with. Away from the search, Ginny visits Lincoln Cathedral, which has stood for nearly one thousand years, and discovers the huge scale behind the conservation plans to safeguard its long-term future.

45 min

51

Pembrokeshire

Jules Hudson helps a retired couple who have decided to escape town life after over 40 years in the same property and, with their £450,000 budget, buy a rural retreat in west Wales with space for their ponies.While in Pembrokeshire, Jules visits Lammas, Britain's first eco-village, and admires the impressive results of families who have self-built their homes and are pioneering a sustainable life in the country.

45 min

52

Gloucestershire

Nicki Chapman is in rural Gloucestershire to help an intrepid aunt and niece find a country home. With a budget of £600,000, they are looking for a house for two generations that can also furnish them with an income. Along the way, Nicki heads to Owlpen Manor, hearing the story of how this Cotswold Tudor building was rescued from its 'sleeping beauty' state after 100 years of disrepair, and restored by the family who now call it home.

45 min

53

Cornwall

Alistair Appleton is in the Cornish countryside house hunting with a couple planning an escape from the busy suburbs of Surrey, hoping to move their family of five to rural Cornwall on a £350,000 budget. Alistair also heads to West Cornwall's rugged coast and courageously joins a team of passionate seaweed collectors to dive and harvest this edible, sustainable superfood.

45 min

54

East Devon

Jules Hudson is in East Devon helping a house buyer who hopes her £300,000 budget will buy her a life close to the coast and has brought along her good friend for support. Along the way, Jules drops in on the Axminster Cherry Fayre a long-lost annual tradition which has recently been revived by the local community.

45 min

55

West Yorkshire

Nicki Chapman is rural property hunting in West Yorkshire with an enthusiastic house-buying couple who have a £550,000 budget and a wish to be close to a vibrant community, since this is new territory for one of them. Away from the search Nicki visits the former home of the Bronte sisters in Haworth and learns more about their early years together and how it inspired their novels.

45 min

56

North Wales

Sonali Shah is on a property-finding mission in North Wales with a mother who has a £295,000 budget and a goal to move close to her daughter, who has already made her escape to the area. Away from the house hunt, Sonali heads to Blaenau Ffestiniog and rides the zip line, one of the highpoints of adventure tourism which is making its mark in this former slate mining area.

45 min

57

North Devon

Jonnie Irwin comes to the house-hunting aid of a dynamic couple with a generous £1.1 million budget and grand ambitions of finding a country property in north Devon with holiday lets, outbuildings for their hobbies and acreage for alpacas. Along the way, Jonnie rides the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway, a Victorian feat of engineering and the longest funicular railway in the UK.

45 min

58

Norfolk

Sonali Shah heads to the Norfolk countryside with a couple planning to buy their first home together, who have high hopes that their £375,000 budget will afford them a character property close to the coast where they can enjoy semi-retirement. Away from the search, Sonali scales the heights of Happisburgh lighthouse and discovers the illuminating past and inner workings of East Anglia's oldest working lighthouse.

45 min

59

North Yorkshire

Jonnie Irwin helps a couple from County Durham who want to border-hop to the North Yorkshire countryside with their £600,000 budget and buy a spacious country home with land to accommodate rescue donkeys.

45 min

60

North Cornwall

Sonali Shah is in Cornwall to help a couple with a lust for life and a love of the coast find a home in the Cornish countryside on a £350,000 budget. Away from her very positive property hunters, Sonali heads to Tintagel Island, where exciting archaeological evidence suggests that this peninsula is not just a site of Arthurian legend but was also one of the largest trading posts in Europe.

45 min

61

Warwickshire

Sonali Shah is in the Warwickshire countryside helping a couple with a £750,000 budget find their ideal home, where an open-plan interior and a generous garden are top priorities.

45 min

62

Shropshire

Jules Hudson is on a homecoming house hunt in the Shropshire countryside as he helps an active couple return to their roots and, with their £350,000 budget, find a property that gives them the great outdoors on their doorstep.

45 min

63

Lincolnshire

Margherita Taylor heads to rural Lincolnshire with a decisive mother and son-in-law to help them find a comfortable country property for £650,000 to house three generations of their family, as well as providing a home for their much-loved horses. While the search gathers pace, Margherita takes in the splendour of Grimsthorpe Castle, the last stately home built by the famous early 18th-century country house architect Sir John Vanbrugh.

45 min

64

Gloucestershire

Jules Hudson takes the reins of a rural property search in Gloucestershire with a horse-loving husband and wife who have a £1.2 million budget and a desire to upscale their country lifestyle. Along the way, Jules visits the Cotswold herb garden of Davina Wynne-Jones, daughter of late renowned garden designer Rosemary Verey, from whom the Prince of Wales sought advice for his gardens at Highgrove.

45 min

65

Norfolk

Nicki Chapman is helping a couple with a £400,000 budget fulfil their dream of escaping to the Norfolk countryside and find a home where top priorities are a large kitchen and space for them to keep rescue animals. While in the county, Nicki visits the National Collection of Lavender at Caley Mill, home to over a hundred different lavender varieties, where she takes in the spectacular sight of the fields in full bloom.

45 min

66

South Wales

Margherita Taylor is helping an outgoing couple who hope their £400,000 budget will fund their escape to the wide, open space of south Wales - and also house their huge collection of superhero memorabilia. While in the region, Margherita heads to the Gower Peninsula and walks the marshland around the Burry Estuary with a sheep farmer whose family looks after their enormous flock in this challenging tidal landscape, producing lamb with a very unique provenance in the process.

45 min

67

Hampshire

Jules Hudson is country property shopping in Hampshire with a buyer who has an £875,000 budget and a firm wish to return to her family roots, which is why she has brought her cousin along for support. Away from their garden-focused house hunt, Jules visits Mottisfont Abbey and is treated to a tour of the historic rose garden, home to a collection of over 700 different varieties, some of which are rare and centuries old.

45 min

68

Worcestershire

Nicki Chapman is on a house-hunting mission in rural Worcestershire with a couple who want their £475,000 pounds to buy them a characterful family home that delivers 'wow factor' and the potential to work from home. Nicki has picked a perfect time to be in the county, as she gets to see how harvesting fields of delphiniums to make flower confetti is both a blooming business and a riot of colour on one historic family farm.

45 min

69

East Midlands

Margherita Taylor travels through the countryside of the East Midlands with a couple who want to invest their £650,000 budget in a character property which has space for their young family and gives them a balance between leading 'the good life' and nearby train connections back to London for work. Along the way, Margherita visits a Leicestershire dairy farm, where a husband-and-wife duo have diversified and revived a 300-year-old recipe for the region's most famous cheese, red leicester, making them the only producers of Leicester cheese made with unpasteurised milk in the county.

45 min

70

Herefordshire

Jules Hudson is in the Herefordshire countryside with a house-hunting couple who have a £600,000 budget to buy a family property and a lifestyle dream which they quickly start to re-evaluate on their journey. While in the county, Jules also visits a potato farm which has been in the same family for over 90 years, and he sees how business is booming in the mechanised age of 21st-century farming.

45 min