Now Angel and Dick Strawbridge, the stars of Channel 4’s Escape To The Chateau, are helping others to follow their example.
The pair have proved so successful with their 45-room restoration project that they are now advising other foreign owners in France.
Their new show, Escape To The Chateau: DIY, starts tomorrow. “It’s not a typical DIY show,” said Angel. “We meet other crazy chateau owners and we all have the same problems and aspirations – how you get rid of the flies, the wild boars, what cherry picker to use. If they have a problem we all work it out together.”
After four years of searching, they bought their own chateau four years ago for £280,000. It proved an enormous project but Angel said they have never felt beaten down by problems.
“You’ve just got to find ways of overcoming them,” she said. “One of the biggest worries for the other owners was making the chateau pay for itself. It’s all well and good living in this beautiful place but there’s a lot of cost in doing the roof and the windows for instance.
You have to really think how you can make the chateau work for you.”
Their own venture is now paying for itself. “I’m not going to lie about this,” said Angel. “It is working for us. For the others on the start of their journey, they’re not there yet.”
She reveals there is a long waiting list for their special food weekend, which is “offered as and when”. The Chateau-de-la-Motte Husson also hosts weddings and team building exercises.
When they first decided to move to France they had smaller properties in mind, until they saw the prices.
“When we started looking at places, it was going to be a little farmhouse,” she explained. “But then you realise what you can get for your money and you can’t help it. The small chateaux start at £150,000.”
As for the TV coverage, that was never planned. “We were already doing it before Channel 4 came along, she said. “The TV just happened to be there and what it paid for is actually quite humble.
“They didn’t pay for any of the renovations but we got a presenter’s fee and we have benefited from the advertising. But we haven’t done it for the TV.”
On her distinctive look, Essex-born Angel, 40, said: “I don’t think about that much. It’s not like, ‘Ooh, I’ve just woken up in this kimono…’ Because I’ve been a collector for so long, I don’t know anything else but I do mix and match with the high street.
“I’ve also had two children and I’m not the shape I was five years ago. I get a lot of emails saying, ‘Those trousers are just my shape’. I’m not thin. I’m perfectly voluptuously formed but I think a lot of people can relate to that.”
She added: “I wear a beret a lot because I don’t have time to do my hair.”
She met Dick in 2010. “I was helping out at a party Dick was attending and I guess you could say I saw his ’tache across a crowded room.
“When I saw him, I was like a dog chasing my tail. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I got really flustered.”
She insists they are “in France for good. We’re going to die here. This is our life, we love it, and we love France. I joke with Dick that when we get too old I will put a Zimmer frame by the moat.”
Escape To The Chateau: DIY is on Channel 4 tomorrow at 4pm
