Bucks Fizz Cheryl Baker joins BBC One's Celebrity Escape to the Country searching for new home in Kent
Published: 18:42, 10 December 2023
Updated: 17:38, 11 December 2023
Pop royalty Cheryl Baker will be appearing on the first ever Celebrity Escape to the Country as she searches for a new home.
It comes after she put her £1.4 million cottage, in West Peckham, near Tonbridge, up for sale this summer after deciding to downsize now her children have "flown the nest".
The six-bedroom property, which the singer bought for £750,000 back in 2011, was put on the market with estate agents Hamptons for £1,425,000.
Cheryl gained fame by winning the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest with band Bucks Fizz who went on to have 20 UK top 60 singles, including three number ones.
However, she left the group in 1993 after helping them sell more than 50 million records across the globe.
In 2004, she began performing alongside Shelley Preston and fellow original Bucks Fizz member Mike Nolan as a group called The Fizz.
The 69-year-old is also the vice president of Medway-based baby loss charity Abigail's Footsteps and has raised thousands of pounds for it.
As she attempts to find a new home, the pop icon and her husband Steve Stroud will be joined by Tunbridge Wells-born presenter Alistair Appleton on BBC One's new spin-off show Celebrity Escape to the Country.
In their episode, the pair will be searching for a house large enough to store five decades' worth of music memorabilia in both Kent and East Sussex.
The synopsis says Alistair is hoping to win them over with an uber-modern mystery house on the south coast.
The show will also be following panto dame Christopher Biggins, TV health professional Doctor Ranj Singh who was born in Chatham and went to Gordon Junior School in Strood, Strictly Come Dancing’s Janette Manrara and Aljaž Škorjanec, and The Chase's Jenny Ryan, as they hope to make a countryside relocation.
First launching in 2002, Escape to the Country has taken a look at Britain’s rural property market, giving urban homeowners an insight into a prospective country life.
Guided by property experts, the buyers decide whether or not to swap the hustle and bustle of city living in favour of the slower pace of the countryside.
Commissioning editor of BBC daytime and factual, Julie Shaw, said: “Audiences love this programme and watching the journeys the house-hunters go on, so it was about time we got to go house hunting with some famous faces.
“I cannot wait for this to land in the schedules.”
Watch Cheryl on Celebrity Escape to the Country on Friday, December 29 at 6.45pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
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Alex Langridge