Charlotte Church is worlds away from her popstar days

Charlotte Church has created a new life for herself, working as a sound healer on the retreat she owns in rural Wales.

Far away from her Crazy Chick days as a popstar, the former singer, 38, has worked hard to convert a £1.5 million mansion once owned by Laura Ashley into a green retreat boasting eight different rooms and able to accommodate up to 16 people at once.

The star made a rare social media appearance on Tuesday to promote a new  initiative for The Dreaming.

The self-proclaimed activist looked worlds away from her polished popstar days as she spoke on camera about her retreat’s ‘open invitation to all Activists’ and the Pay What You Can ethos for a September retreat.

The former Voice of an Angel singer bought Rhydoldog House with her husband Jonathan Powell, whom she shares a four-year-old daughter with, in 2021 and turned it into a retreat for paying guests to ‘reconnect with themselves and the natural world’.

The home, which she has renamed The Dreaming, is just outside the rural market town of Rhayader.

Charlotte finally opened her green retreat last year after overcoming building problems and winning a series of planning battles to transform the property.

The seven-bedroom mansion has three storeys, a helicopter landing and a 200-year-old barn on its 47 acres.

It is a wellness retreat with cycling, archery, foraging, hiking and strength and conditioning lessons available – with a hot tub, plunge pool and outdoor cinema.

One of the eight guest rooms is named ‘The Womb’ and is described as a ‘celebration of womanhood’ that is designed to make you feel ‘swaddled’ and contains a pink shower made of tadelakt (a natural, lime-based plaster indigenous to Marrakech) that Charlotte likens to ‘a very large and unusual-shaped vagina’.

The retreat also contains a Healing Room where guests can partake in movement, yoga, sound healing, and group work, as well as many gardens, a Potting Shed, Japanese Tea House and a Waterfall Shower.

The minimum stay is for three nights, and the most expensive room on site, The Forest Spirits, goes for £900 per person.

Food and drink is included, though alcohol is strictly banned, with meals being communal and mostly vegetarian and vegan, while guests are encouraged to help plant and harvest vegetables and cook alongside the chefs. 

Charlotte has explained how the retreat sources power from a hydro mill and has a water source heat pump to provide hot water. 

Speaking last year Charlotte explained she has been an activist for years and wanted to channel her ‘values’ into her work projects.

She said: ‘I really care about the future and the future of the planet, you know, I really think that we can turn things around and so I wanted to be involved in projects and I wanted to start projects, which was living my values really, and living my activism. 

‘We’ve got a water source heat pump and we’ve got the hydro mill, and we’re gonna have a huge food growing project. 

‘So this year we’ll have about an acre, an acre and a half of land in which to grow food, and then, In the next two or three years, that’s gonna grow to like three or four acres.’

As well as her plans for a food growing project, Charlotte said she will be able to forage in the 80,000 acres of forest surrounding The Dreaming. 

The Voice Of An Angel hitmaker said she has priced the retreat on a ‘sliding scale’ so it is not too far out of people’s price ranges.

She said: ‘We’ve got a sliding scale price range and a pay what you can system. So that on every retreat there’s a pay what you can space, because I – you know, everybody’s struggling, so I want us to make sure that we’re not too bougie.’

Breaks start from £450 for three days, but ‘to allow access for people of all means, The Dreaming offers a ‘pay what you can’ space on every three-day retreat’.

To open the lavish retreat, Charlotte overcame a series of planning battles and building problems.

Environmental and planning bigwigs expressed particular concerns about her plans for treating and disposing of waste from four proposed log cabins, with the ecology department of the local council warning of the deficiencies of many ‘private sewage treatment systems’.

In addition the retreat plans were also opposed by her local council – who feared it could cause ‘unacceptable risk’ to drivers. 

The property’s makeover into a green retreat was turned into a documentary series on the Discovery Channel. 

Charlotte previously revealed she’s going to sing at the retreat, saying: ‘I’m going to be a practitioner there every week, I’m going to be singing and connecting to the land, it’s about voice that’s much more than just singing.

‘It’s about listening to the land and bringing the outdoors in, being able to go there and to rest and be at one with nature. Within the creative process there is always friction, I was under the impression that what I was doing was quite normal.’

Alongside her life at The Dreaming, Charlotte has also launched her first podcast, Kicking Back with the Cardiffians on BBC Sounds, with new episodes available weekly. On the podcast she discusses her Welsh heritage, family bonds, her working class identity and growing up in Cardiff. 

She rose to fame in childhood as a classical singer before she branched into pop music in 2005, by 2007 the singer sold more than ten million records worldwide.

Her musical career kicked off when she was just 11-years-old after she sang Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Pie Jesu song on This Morning in 1997.

The singer was previously engaged to rugby ace Gavin Henson, with whom she lived a lavish lifestyle which even led them to be dubbed the Welsh Posh and Becks

Charlotte has two children with her ex, daughter Ruby, 17, and son Dexter, 15.

Gavin and Charlotte split in 2010. She went onto marry Jonathan and together they welcomed their daughter Freya in 2020.