Take a look at our showreel from the last series.
Chateau DIY at Christmas takes a look at how some of the families from the main series prepare for the season on a chateau-sized scale. From restoring parts of their beautiful buildings for exciting events to creating epic festive decorations and unique ways to celebrate the big day we follow the highs and lows of these adventurous DIY-ers as they prepare to mark this special time of year.
Having worked hard running successful businesses and completing numerous DIY tasks, for many owners the holiday season is not a time to put their feet up. There are big ambitious projects to complete as well as smaller ones to pull off to make the big day perfect. Packed with handy take-home tips as well as beautiful transformations, this series delivers all the excitement and drama of living in a chateau over the festive period. (TX Christmas 2022 on Channel 4)
Following a successful pilot, Channel 4 has commissioned a fifteen-part series of Tool Club from Sheffield-based Spark North and Scotland-based Beezr Studios, for Channel 4 daytime.
Due to transmit in late 2021
Filming started in November 2020 and continues throughout 2021. In Chateau DIY series 6 we catch up with all our favourite chateau owners as they continue their restoration projects, run their current businesses and launch some fantastic new ones.
Celebrating the ambitious people turning their dreams into a reality across France, we’ve already got some incredible stories in the pipeline. These include massive renovation jobs and a complete overhaul of a huge garden – a task that even the horticulturalists at Kew Gardens would run a mile from!
We will be spending even more time with our families, getting to know them better as they organise trips out of their chateaus and into the local towns and countryside giving viewers further insight into their French lifestyle.
Post 2020, our owners have delayed events to re-book and weddings to be rescheduled – all alongside the bookings for 2021 they already had in the diary. So we know, with confidence, that series 6 is going to be packed full with renovations, builds, events and even more trials and tribulations from across the channel.
Due to transmit early 2021
Chateau DIY is back. Filming started at the end of 2019 and continued throughout 2020. With a year of lockdowns and travel bans, our fantastic family of chateau owners face huge obstacles to keep their chateaus up and running whilst also trying to maintain their businesses and renovation projects.
Familiar faces return as they battle to restore their once unloved buildings into the fairytale castles they have always dreamt of. With jaw-dropping renovations in the caves under one chateau, a luminous entrance hall makeover in another, alongside the never-ending work on a gite – series 5 continues to bring all the drama and tension viewers know and love but ultimately basks in the beautiful makeovers that our chateaux families achieve.
We introduce 2 new ‘chateau shopping’ couples, desperate to leave the UK and bag a dream home in France; welcome a brand new family to the series; and spend time getting to know our families in more detail as we follow some beautifully-crafted personal project stories.
First aired – 30th November to 11th December 2020
We catch up with our heroic chateaux owners as they continue to build, renovate and rejuvenate these old buildings, many of which have been left empty for decades.
Major business launches are in the pipeline for some of the chateaux and one of our regular faces has an unexpected arrival whilst hosting a wedding.
As usual, things don’t always go smoothly for our hard-working families but each of them are determined to get the jobs done, the events run smoothly and the renovations completed – with truly remarkable results.
Escape to the Chateau DIY Series 3 (Produced by Kindling Media) had 20 episodes and premiered on 23rd March 2020.
Following the success of series 1, Escape to the Chateau DIY returns on Wednesdays 5pm Channel 4.
The daytime series Escape to the Chateau DIY was Channel 4’s biggest daytime launch since 2010.
Escape to the Chateau DIY has been nominated in the Best Daytime category at The Broadcast Awards 2019 – a fantastic accolade from the UK TV industry’s biggest and most influential magazine.
Produced by Kindling Media
Escape to the Chateau – Series 7 & 8 (Produced by Kindling Media) has been commissioned (8 episodes) and these will transmit in 2019.
‘Proper fairytale, it is really romantic. That’s it, I’m inspired – inspired to Google “chateaus for sale”’
– Sam Wollaston, The Guardian
“This is perfectly cast fantasy television full of innocent charm but also inspiringly practical.”
– Jasper Rees, The Telegraph
“Most property makeover shows are a superficial business, but Escape To The Chateau (C4) is a renovation project on a seismic scale.”
– Christopher Stevens, The Daily Mail
We return to catch up with Dick & Angel Strawbridge as they enjoy their third year in the Chateau de la Motte. Get ready for more makeover, craft and engineering on the grandest of scales.
Press:
We return to catch up with Dick & Angel Strawbridge as they enjoy their second year in the Chateau de la Motte. Get ready for more makeover, craft and engineering on the grandest of scales.
Escape to the Chateau is an observational documentary series following the fortunes of retired army colonel turned eco-warrior, Dick Strawbridge and his partner Angel Adoree as they struggle to renovate their newly-acquired dilapidated French chateau.
Battlechefs is the world’s first floating cookery competition set aboard a luxury cruise liner.
Kindling Media are now using the Talent Manager to manager our CV database and list our job vacancies. To send your CV for consideration, please join our network here. It is crucial that you keep your availability information regularly updated after your join and upload your CV via the Talent Manager.
Sustainability
We aim to provide top quality programming while also doing everything we can to keep our environmental impact to a minimum, both locally and when filming abroad.
The Unit Base is kitted out with recycling bins, water coolers for easy refills and low energy bulbs. Crew are all issued with re-usable water bottles to reduce plastic consumption and we are committed to sourcing locally and sustainably.
Our productions are signed up to BAFTA's Albert scheme to focus on reducing the environmental impact of filming and to establish a workable and realistic plan to help decrease our carbon footprint. There is a 'think before you print' policy and we only use rechargeable batteries.
We're using low emission/hybrid vehicles for unit cars, taxis and couriers. We ask people to car share and have a 'no idling' policy. We also use offsetting programmes with airlines when booking team travel abroad for those emissions we can't reduce.
