Dawn French is set for pastures new with Can You Keep a Secret?, her new sitcom with Mark Heap that premieres on BBC One on 7 January. But away from the camera, the comedian, who has long been known as one half of the comedy duo French and Saunders, lives a quiet life in Cornwall.
Dawn, 68, moved to Cornwall in 2006 with her charity executive husband, Mark Bignell, whom she married in 2013, in pursuit of a quieter life, and for a long time, she had just that. She resided in a gorgeous £6.6 million Gothic mansion in Fowey, but in 2021, the star offloaded the property after she started to grow resentful of how busy the town was becoming.
© ShutterstockThe best-selling author claimed the town, which offers an array of eateries, art galleries, and indie shops, had become "too cool and trendy" and has since retreated to a quieter area of Cornwall, which she is yet to disclose to the public. We do, however, know that she is living in a five-bedroom Victorian-era villa with waterside views.
Inside Dawn's home she left behind
Dawn's home was a haven for a writer (the star has written four hugely popular novels) and had a picture-perfect office. Her study featured enormous bay windows, salmon pink walls and a mahogany writing desk stacked high with reading material for inspiration.
"I made a beautiful room to write in, and now I can't stop looking at the room, and the view instead of writing," Dawn lamented on Instagram. The Fowey home was also a thing of beauty from the outside, set on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea.
© Alamy Stock PhotoThe home also featured 15 bedrooms, as well as a separate coach house with two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room and a kitchen, as well as a separate garden.
It is a sense of serenity which has drawn many high-profile figures to beautiful Cornwall, from the Hollywood actress Cate Blanchett to former This Morning presenter Fern Britton, who told us exclusively about what it's like living down in the far southwest. Cornwall has fast become the 'British Hamptons,' offering stars a level of privacy and rugged, romantic winters that London simply cannot match, provided they can find a spot that hasn't yet become, in Dawn's words, 'too cool'."
© Instagram"I live in a very small hamlet, and it's almost as if I've died and I'm in heaven here," Fern told us in an exclusive interview last year. "In the winter, you can get a crystal-blue day, and everybody turns out on the beach and walks the dog. And then you get the lonely long winter days, and it gets even more spooky and romantic. I lie in bed and kid myself that I can hear the sea."
Living close to her daughter
The main advantage of Dawn's Fowey home was its proximity to her daughter, Billie Henry, whom she shares with her ex-husband, comedian Lenny Henry. Speaking of the home, which was situated just 12 minutes from Billie's residence, her mother told the Telegraph in 2015: "We could no longer live together - there would be murder. But we have to live nearby."
© WireImageOpening up further about their close relationship, Dawn previously told us: "[Our bond] is unbreakable. We have the same amount of mother/daughter friction that any mum and daughter have; it's no more or less. But I've learnt a lot about her. And she's learnt a lot about me." She added that her daughter is: "My biggest test and my biggest joy."
© InstagramDawn and Lenny adopted Billie in 1991 when she was just two weeks old, after struggling to conceive naturally. The actress told The Sunday Telegraph of her struggles: "I had grief for a while. I did have miscarriages, so I’ve had grief about that as well.
"But the minute Billie arrived, that was it for me. She fills everything I need to be as a mother."
