Alan Titchmarsh has candidly admitted that saying goodbye to the £3.5million country home he lovingly transformed over two decades left him feeling deeply unsettled.
The beloved TV gardener, 77, recently swapped his historic Grade II-listed Georgian farmhouse in Holybourne, Hampshire, for a modern five-bedroom luxury home in Surrey, but revealed the decision to leave behind the sprawling estate was far from easy.
After placing Manor Farm House on the market for £3.95million last year before eventually reducing the price to £3.5million, Alan confessed that handing over the keys to new owners was an emotional experience.
Reflecting on the sale, he said: “You’re only a custodian, I keep telling myself — you don’t own anything.”
He continued: “Because of the economic climate, we’ve had to sell to someone who could buy it. But I will just turn away and say, ‘Good luck.’ It’s very unsettling but I’m starting to make it my own with ours now.”
The four-and-a-half-acre gardens surrounding the 17th-century property had become one of Alan’s greatest achievements, making the move all the more painful.
Describing the transition as “an enormous wrench”, he admitted that age had played a major role in the decision.
“It’s a pretty big number and in another ten years time I probably would have found where we were too much for one man. Four and a half acres of busy garden — and yes, I had help but help costs money, so I needed to…”, he explained.
Alan, who celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary with wife Alison last year, said maintaining such a vast property would eventually become unmanageable.
The television legend has now settled into a £2.6million single-storey luxury retreat in Surrey, purchased from Omaze winner Rachael Reid, who had originally secured the property with a £10 raffle ticket.
Speaking about the strikingly different home, Alan said: “The house is wonderfully modern and completely different from the Georgian farmhouse where we were before.”
Despite public fascination with the sale and his property portfolio, Alan insisted he has no intention of discussing his finances.
“Money is nothing to do with anybody else, and I don’t want to be seen as a show-off,” he declared.
Speculation had surrounded the timing of the move after controversial plans emerged to build up to 156 new homes on land directly behind his former estate, sparking hundreds of objections from local residents.
However, Alan has repeatedly denied that the proposed development had anything to do with his decision.
He previously said: “We are simply downsizing and moving to be closer to our two daughters and our grandchildren who live a few miles away.”
Dismissing suggestions that the housing project influenced his departure, he added: “Tempting as it might be to suggest that the proposed development has influenced our decision is completely wide of the mark.”
Although the farewell to the Hampshire home was bittersweet, Alan previously acknowledged that whoever inherits his famous gardens deserves to make them their own.
“Whoever takes on my garden will want to do their own thing — and they must,” he wrote.
“They must make of this piece of Hampshire earth a sanctuary that fulfils their needs and — hopefully — that of the wildlife that has made home in our organically run haven.”
