Liam Gallagher appears on the cover of Country Life magazine, embracing the role of “rural gent” after buying ex-footballer Tony Adams’ five-acre estate in The Cotswolds. He is not the first famous city slicker to make an escape to the country.
From Salford to the Welsh borders
Happy Mondays icon Bez, real name Mark Berry, grew up on the mean streets of Salford but now lives the quiet life on the Welsh borders. The raver enjoys beekeeping and running with his dog.
Supermodels, rock stars and farmers
Supermodel Kate Moss, once the face of cosmetics brand Rimmel, swapped the city for leafy Little Faringdon, West Oxfordshire, when she sold her London mansion in 2021. Jeremy Clarkson, once famed for his love of flashy supercars, turned country living into a career with his 1,000-acre farm in Chipping Norton, setting for Amazon Prime series Clarkson’s Farm.
Blur bassist Alex James has been living on a sprawling cheese farm near Kingham, Oxfordshire since 2003. Actress Olivia Colman spent more than a decade in Peckham, southeast London, before moving to a Norfolk barn conversion in 2021. She said: “I like being able to be outside and no-one can see me. I wear a woolly hat.”
More stars who left the city
Queen icon Brian May left the capital after his £7million mansion in Kensington, west London, was flooded in 2021, moving to the village of Windlesham in Surrey. Millie Bobby Brown, who shot to fame at 12, decided Los Angeles was not for her and now lives on a farm in Atlanta, Georgia.
David and Victoria Beckham moved to their £6million Cotswolds estate, where Sir David spends time fishing, beekeeping and tending to his garden. Rock icon Robert Plant has lived the rural dream since the late 60s, when he bought Jennings Farm in Blakeshall, Worcestershire, and now owns a house in the nearby village of Shatterford. Actor Hugh Grant, who has a £17.5million mansion in Chelsea, west London, heads to the Cotswolds when he wants to escape, rumoured to live in the tiny village of Stinchcombe, Gloucestershire.
