Television lessons to reform a castle

The Spanish proverb says that “things in the palace go slowly”.

And with a castle it was not going to be less.

Angel (London, 43 years old) and Dick Strawbridge (Myanmar, 62 years old) know this well, who in 2015 left behind a two-bedroom apartment in Southend (England) to buy a 19th-century castle in north-western France and go live in it.

Since then, this marriage has been fully dedicated to reforming it, both to turn it into a home for three generations and to erect a special place in which to celebrate events of all kinds.

And all that path has been seen in

, a program that COSMO broadcasts from Monday to Friday at 9:00 p.m. and which premiered its ninth season last February.

The Strawbridges answer EL PAÍS by video call from one of the many rooms in their fortress —a moat included—, of which they are proud and in which they still have a lot of work to do.

More information

Buying a castle in Spain is not a fairy tale

Both are regular characters on British television, and it was in that world that they met.

She, a writer and businesswoman, had her first appearance in 2010 on

a program in which unknown people have a few minutes to present their project to successful entrepreneurs to get investors.

Angel was part of the latter group, after standing out in London with her pastry shop The Vintage Patisserie.

That same year, Dick participated in the celebrity edition of

of the BBC, where he managed to reach the final.

Burmese by birth, he joined the British Army in 1979 and had already appeared in another

,

where you have to build a machine out of scrap metal that meets certain requirements.

That skill with his hands is appreciated now that they have set out to reform an entire castle.

To the price they paid upfront for the building, about 335,000 euros, little by little they have been adding what was invested in rehabilitating it, which already amounts to another 300,000 euros —and which is already amortized thanks, for example, to the events held at-.

Almost everything they have repaired with their own hands and with the help of some friends.

Angel jokes that Dick is "very efficient," something she liked about him and that caught her attention when the rep they shared introduced them at a birthday party.

“We're almost 20 years apart and we come from completely different walks of life,” says Dick, “but we just hit it off and haven't been apart since that first night.

We sat and chatted and saw each other every chance we got.

And suddenly we are living in a castle with two children.

How about?".

The Strawbridge couple, on the scaffolding of the castle, during the rehabilitation of the façade. COSMO

Going to live in a castle was not an easy decision.

Dick describes it as an “awkward” process, but they were confident in its potential to make it suitable for a family space: “We knew we could do whatever we set out to do.

And that is not arrogance.

It's because we both planned, we both thought and it was hard because we were a long time without water, heating, electricity, sewage, without any of that, it was obviously a bit problematic.

But we managed to organize our life pretty quickly.

And a month and a half after signing the purchase of the castle, Angel, the children and I moved”.

In search of a fairytale castle

Finding the right building was no easy task either.

The search lasted for four years until they received some photos of this nineteenth-century castle in northern France, which had been uninhabited for several years.

The chosen one was the Château-de-la-Motte Husson, a fortification located in the Pays de la Loire, in western France.

The place had plenty of potential to become a home for his two children and even grandparents: 45 rooms, seven outbuildings, nearly five hectares of land, and its own moat.

In addition, they have added some gardens and have carved orchards.

Angel explains that at first they were open “to any possibility”, they weren't just looking for castles: “We also saw a lot of pseudo

.

Also town houses, country houses and we even looked at some small properties so that our life could be different”.

Anything they wanted it to have they added to a list, like a laundromat, garden walls, or two tall towers.

“Towers look great at weddings.

I didn't need them for our house, but if we were thinking about doing a wedding business, they were going to be enchanting because of the fairy tale narrative," argues Angel, "and when we first saw it it was literally like a dream, it was everything we wanted.

It was beautiful and had everything we had on the list.”

The Strawbridges, during the renovation of the walls. COSMO

Once there, they were given a 200-page document listing the various problems with the castle.

But they didn't see in him "anything that was a big enough impediment or a big enough problem" to put them off, Dick explains.

The poor condition also helped to lower the price, since they suspect that if it had been well equipped they could not have afforded it, confesses Angel.

Now, says the businesswoman, they earn money with it thanks to the wedding business and the celebration of other parties: they themselves inaugurated it by celebrating his wedding there.

After great progress, this season they will face one of the biggest challenges: rebuilding the roof and exterior walls.

The marriage denies that living in a castle is something "terrifying" and, on the contrary, they describe their stay there as "enchanting".

Dick acknowledges that “it is not the oldest castle in the world either”, since it is only 150 years old;

but they assure that there are no ghosts, nor are the towers haunted and there is absolutely nothing scary, something that they have to explain from time to time to the most frightened guests, jokes Angel, who insists that “just because it is bigger it does not have more likely to be haunted than a smaller house.”

They have had time to verify it in these two years, when as a result of the pandemic they have not been able to celebrate any event.

“During this time it has simply been a home that our children love as well,” says Dick.

The Strawbridge family, with children Arthur and Dorothy in the center of the photo. COSMO

The Strawbridges still have a castle and renovations to go for a while, and they hardly remember their old apartment anymore.

Although they admit that it is also very comfortable to live in a more compact place, with everything at hand.

The only thing they miss from their old life?

Not having to deal with 112 steps to get around the house and having to clean a lot less.

But they wouldn't go back for the world.

The Spanish proverb also says it: "To each little bird, its nidillo pleases".

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