“We had no ambitions to farm. It was really just to live a different life, to be a bit more present, a bit more settled, to live – dare I say it – a simpler life. It’s turned out to be everything but that. It’s been far more complicated and far more adventurous. But far more fun too. We’ve got our seatbelts on and we’re just enjoying the ride.”
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Celebrity farmers
Kelvin Fletcher
After appearing as Andy Sugden in more than 2,000 episodes of Emmerdale, in 2021 Kelvin Fletcher, along with his fellow-actor wife Liz Marsland and their growing family, made a thoroughly bold move. The couple, residents of Oldham for their entire lives, had just bought a remote 485-hectare farm on the edge of the Peak District. Although only 30 miles from their hometown, it was a world away culturally, a total abandonment of their comfort zone. Kelvin didn’t even own a pair of wellies. On moving day, he turned up at the farm in a pair of toothpaste-white trainers.
“I spent 20 years playing a fictional farmer, but nothing was transferable, he says. "Very rarely would we talk about farming on the show. The focus was more on murder and affairs. So there was nothing I learned from Emmerdale that I’ve taken into my real-life farming world. The irony now is that life is very much imitating art.”
Accordingly, life as farmers offered a steep learning curve for the couple, but it was one they threw themselves into. “Every day there was something new to learn,” says Kelvin. “Nine times out of 10, a new-found understanding is followed by an appreciation where you’re in wonder. And, from the earliest stages, it just became a passion for all of us. I can’t imagine a life without a farm now. I genuinely can’t.”
As documented on both the BBC series Kelvin’s Big Farming Adventure and ITV’s Fletchers’ Family Farm, Kelvin and Liz started out with a modest flock of 10 Cotswold sheep before branching out into rare-breed pigs and alpacas. Never one to shirk a challenge (he’s also a former Strictly Come Dancing champion and a racing driver), Kelvin appears to have conquered another world. “We’ve found our calling,” he smiles.
“However nice it must be to perform at the National Theatre and all the other things I aspired to as a kid, to be with my family on our little farm is just the biggest gift. Acting is such a busy, exhausting life and this is so different and it humbles you. There’s nothing more humbling than shovelling poo or having to forage berries for your kids’ milkshake. It’s so liberating and genuine and wholesome.”
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt
In 2008, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie spent nearly $30m buying a 404-hectare château and vineyard in Provence, from which they soon started producing their own rosé, olive oil and honey. “I’m a farmer now,” Pitt announced to Wine Spectator magazine. “I love learning about the land, which field is most suitable for which grape, the drama of September and October: ‘Are we picking today? Where are the sugar levels? How is the acidity? Is it going to rain?’”
The couple were married at Château Miraval, but the vineyard later became the focus of a post-divorce legal battle. One waggish journalist, with one eye on a certain Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner film, dubbed the dispute “the war of the rosé”.
Martin Clunes
Starring in ITV’s gritty farming drama Out There, actor Martin Clunes has, for many years, lived on the 52-hectare Higher Meerhay Farm near Beaminster in Dorset with his family. At first, Clunes threw himself wholeheartedly into farming life – with 200 ewes and more than 50 cows – but soon realised he’d bitten off more than he could chew.
“It was mental crazy and too much hard work,” he admitted. “I thought I could make the farm wash its face but I couldn’t.” Clunes sold the sheep and cattle and now keeps a manageable seven horses (including Clydesdales), hens and three cows.
Russell Crowe
Russell Crowe’s farm, in Nana Glen, New South Wales, has grown to cover 566 hectares and is home to more than 700 Black Angus cattle. For actor Crowe, it became both refuge and retreat from his high-profile Hollywood life.
“This place will fix anything,” he told CBS News, “but you have to let it do the job. And you have to be prepared to become part of the place. So you get up with the sun. You work the animals. You do all the little jobs that need doing, fixing a fence or whatever it happens to be. And a period of time will go by and you’ll wake up in the morning and you’ll realise that you’ve actually reached a balance again. And that’s what it’s become. It’s an anchor.”
Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban
Also in New South Wales is Bunya Hill Farm, the home of Nicole Kidman and her country-music-star husband Keith Urban. After buying the farm in 2008, the couple have a herd of Black Angus cattle, goats, chickens, alpacas and fields of lavender. Kidman makes jam with the fruit from their orchard.
Alex James
Alex James, the bass player with Blur, and his wife Claire took on a dilapidated 80-hectare farm in the Oxfordshire village of Kingham during the foot-and-mouth crisis of 2001. Seeking to put down some roots after the hedonistic chaos of the Britpop days, James soon established himself as a cheesemaker of note; he was far from the only farmer, faced by declining milk prices, to move into the trade. To him, the career shift has been his “second act”.
James’s farm is also home to around 300 sheep, along with pigs, ducks and chickens; they make their own cider from their pear and apple trees as well. He and his wife have certainly turned the place around. “He really didn’t want to sell the place, the farmer,” James wrote in his memoir All Cheeses Great and Small. “The poor man had been a beef specialist: punched on the nose by BSE, then kicked in the face by foot and mouth… It had been the worst time in history to be a farmer.” Since 2012, he has hosted The Big Feastival at his farm – a festival which combines music and food.
Andy Cato
In 2022, Andy Cato (of electronic music duo Groove Armada) took on the 25-year lease of a National Trust farm, having spent the previous 12 years establishing a 20-hectare organic farm in Gascony in south-west France. Cato sold the rights to his music to pay for the purchase of the French property, soon becoming known for his progressive farming.
In 2020, Cato was awarded the Laureate Nationale for innovation in agroecology, and remains a passionate campaigner for responsible farming. “We are fed thanks to the eternal optimism of the farmer,” he wrote in The Guardian. “For that irrepressible spirit to endure during these fast-changing times, we need to do everything we can to redesign our food system around diversity, nature’s foundational principle of health and resilience.”
JB Gill
Resilience is a key tenet of a farmer’s life, according to another musician who turned to the land – JB Gill of boy band JLS. “Farming teaches you so much about resilience and patience,” he explains. “It’s incredibly hard work and sometimes you don’t get to see a lot for it in the short term.”
In 2010, at the height of the group’s fame, JB bought a modest six-hectare property near Sevenoaks in Kent, an unlikely move for someone who, aside from a few early years in Antigua, had grown up in Croydon.
Initially, JB was simply in search of a refuge in which to briefly escape from a crazily busy showbiz life. “With travelling and touring and recording, there was very little downtime. It was just one day after another. I go through periods of four or five months without a day off – literally. So, when I did eventually have downtime, it was always an aspiration to have peace and quiet.”
The rural bolthole did provide that peace, but JB and his partner Chloe soon realised the land should be doing more than just growing arable crops. “It wasn’t a case of ‘We’ve always wanted to set up a farm’,” he explains. “It was more about utilising the space correctly. So, if I was going to go into farming, how best to do that? What would suit me? I did a lot of research and spoke to people like [farmers and television presenters] Adam Henson and Jimmy Doherty. There were so many ideas floating about.
“But it happened quite naturally. The first animal we had was a pig we rescued called Ginger. We had our first litter with her in 2011 and we went from there. We started keeping chickens and then branched out into turkeys.” Although the couple have since scaled down on the pigs, the farm is noted for its KellyBronze turkeys, making the pre-Christmas period the fulcrum of its year.
JB has also taken full advantage of his public persona to educate the wider population about the importance of farming, whether for adults or kids through his CBeebies show Down on the Farm, his ambassadorship of Farms for City Children and his Ace and the Animal Heroes series of books.
“You saw that shift in attitudes towards farming during lockdown,” says JB. “People walked into supermarkets and there were no eggs, there was no flour, products that they took for granted. People sat up and took notice. They started appreciating the work of producers and growers and farmers.”
JB is, of course, one of those. “Ours isn’t going to be the biggest farm in the world, but it serves a purpose, it has a role. I’m incredibly proud about that.” He’s also found that peace he was craving. “The farm has helped me take perspective and develop more of a work/life balance, especially with having a young family. You miss so much if you’re away all the time. You can’t get those moments back.”
Main image: Brad Pitt in 2024/Getty
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