A South Warwickshire holiday retreat played host to two celebrities for the filming of a prime-time TV dating show currently airing.
A Channel Four production crew took over Winchcombe Farm in September as part of the hotly anticipated new series of Celebs Go Dating, featuring a host of stars including Gary Lucy and Pete Wicks.
It marks a third appearance for The Only Way Is Essex favourite Wicks, 33, who says he is ‘determined to find love on the show.’
He appears alongside Lucy, 40, who played Kyle Pascoe on Hollyoaks until earlier this year. The pair spent two days filming while staying in George’s Getaway lodge. Their potential love interests stayed in The Chicken Shed and most of the filming took place in Winchcombe’s largest property, Ben’s Burrow.
Jo Carroll, who co-owns the business in Upper Tysoe with husband Steve Taylor, said: “It’s not often to get the talk about the celebs that comes and stay with us! We’ve become a popular retreat for quite a few famous faces and politicians, who want a private and secluded rural getaway.
“It created quite a buzz of excitement on the site and was fascinating for us to see what goes on behind the scenes filming these shows.
“It took two days to film just a half hour slot for the show and we had to close the bookings down for the whole site as we had celebrities and 23 crew members running around.”
Jo added: “Gary Lucy and Pete Wicks were really down to earth delightful people and both utterly charming. Gary Lucy in particular absolutely loved the place and wanted to know all about it..”
The popular reality dating series, narrated by comedian Rob Beckett, sees matchmakers Paul Carrick Brunson, Anna Williamson and Tom Read Wilson set the celebrities up with total strangers.
As well as Lucy and Wicks, the latest series of Celebs Go Dating, produced by Liverpool’s Lime Pictures, brings together other famous faces such as Love Islanders Laura Anderson, 33, and Liam Reardon, 23, Geordie Shore‘s Bethan Kershaw, 27, singer Sinitta, 58, The Apprentice star Navid Sole, 27 and Cecilie Fjellhøy, a Tindler Swindler cast member.
Celebs Go Dating airs weeknights at 10pm on E4. Winchcombe Farm appears in last night’s episode (December 16th) and Monday night’s episode (December 19th) and can also be found on Catch Up via https://www.channel4.com/programmes/celebs-go-dating (Episodes 15 and 16)
More about Winchcombe Farm https://winchcombefarm.co.uk/
The remote family-run retreat nestles on a private estate in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and beneath the famous battlefield landmark of Edgehill on the Warwickshire and Cotswolds border. It’s an oasis of tranquillity with just sheep, chickens, moorhens, ducks, ponies and alpacas for company.
Designed with outdoor living in mind, this unique collection of six beautiful holiday homes – includes Warwickshire’s only treehouse – offering the height of luxury and nestling in four sycamore and ash trees – three of them growing through the outside deck and one even growing through the kitchen!
Luxury features across the properties range from his and hers rolltop bathtubs, private hot tubs, hanging chairs, hammocks and outside shower, pizza oven, BBQ hut, firepit for toasting marshmallows and even heated geodesic domes with king size circular bed plus personal telescopes for a spot of stargazing – one of them floating on a pond! Guests even receive a luxury welcome hamper on arrival to start their holiday in style.
