

The charming town of Malmesbury clusters around the River Avon, which ultimately flows south to Bradford-on-Avon and west to Bath and Bristol. What could be better than a leisurely day spent discovering local history, perusing all manner of quirky shops and quaint cafés or simply admiring the idyllic surroundings?įrom Bamburgh and Beccles to Malmesbury and Malton, our pick of the best market towns in England is sure to help you plan your rural retreat. Not a match for our wishlist at all but it was only the first.Rural market towns lend themselves perfectly to slow travel. Loved the village but the cottage needed complete renovation, had a really long garden (at the front), and was so small. They took us to three properties during the day starting with a tiny terraced cottage in the beautiful village of Kington St Michael. We did our best though and Jo was brilliant. It may seem obvious to everyone but when they film a chat from the front, then over your shoulder, then over the presenters shoulder, then from distance, it does become very tiring and difficult to keep saying the same things with the initial enthusiasm. We filmed lots of intro sections with him about what we wanted and why, with the continual reshooting of every conversation from multiple angles taking a while to get used to. He seemed a lovely friendly guy and was so interested in our whole lifestyle and travelling story. Wednesday saw us hit the ground running! Early start when we met the one of the faces of the show Alistair Appleton who would be presenting our programme. Imagine us in a posh hotel in the Wiltshire countryside (with complimentary breakfast too). That was an early start with a long walk, train, tube, train, and taxi to get to Guyers House Hotel. We asked for something with character in Wiltshire within our minimal budget so were told to meet the film crew at the Guyers House hotel in Corsham near Chippenham. Two days later we heard from Lucy that they loved our back story, who wouldn’t? Next day we were on another Zoom interview with the production team and overnight got told we would be filming the following week! Talk about moving fast.Īs part of the application process we had to obviously decide on criteria for the property search.
#Escape to the country series
The lovely casting researcher Lucy put together a presentation film to pitch us to the main series production team. None of this was for the show though, it was all part of the application process.

Over the following week we had a phone interview, had to film ourselves in a variety of situations, went through a 2 hour Zoom call, and spent the day with a casting film crew here in Welwyn Garden City. After a brief chat we decided to apply and the initial application was followed by a member of the Fremantle casting team phoning me two days later. On a rainy day in early May we found ourselves watching ETTC (I’m sure no-one ever calls it that) and at the end Jo was intrigued by the ‘ if you want to appear‘ advert as the show finished.
