Escape To The Country: Derbyshire couple make new home near Peak District National Park on BBC 1 show

Darcie and Ian Cousins showed Escape to the Country presenter Nicki Chapman around their renovated home in Hognaston, eight years after she helped them find it.

The couple, who loved travelling around the Peak District in their campervan, were looking to move from St Neots in Cambridgeshire to a four-bedroom home and had a budget of £400,000 when they sought Nicki’s help back in 2015.

Viewers of the BBC programme I Escaped to the Country – which aired this afternoon (Monday, January 8) – learned how Darcie and Ian had put their own stamp on the 19th century property which was originally built as a pigsty. They knocked down a wall to give them a bigger kitchen and had storage cupboards built either side of a chimney breast in the lounge to create a clutter-free environment.

In 2019 Darcie gave up her job as a business consultant and set up Refills on the Road, selling eco-friendly products which quickly evolved and grew into selling food and liquid refills. She is now on her second van which she converted herself. Darcie tells Nicki Chapman: “I travel around Derbyshire and help people reduce their reliance on single-use plastics and I like to think that I'm doing my bit to help the planet.”

When Ian and Darcie are not renovating their property or involved in village activities such as Hog Fest, which they helped organise for two years, the couple work on an allotment where they grow courgettes, potatoes, strawberries, raspberries, edamame beans, snap peas and mangetout.

American born Darcie says: “One of the things that attacted me to a smaller village is where I was living in Virgnina there had been a sense of community so it was something I felt I was missing when I was in Cambridgeshire but I have regained by coming here. I love it here. It's nice to feel I have a place where I belong and feel part of it."

I Escaped to the Country is available on BBC 1 catch-up.