In the summer of 2022, however, she and her husband – chef and St John alumnus Tim Blanchard – moved to Totnes in Devon. Fittingly, they fell for a former wool merchant’s house. Uphill from the River Dart, at the top of town, the building dates back to the 1830s and has cycled through different purposes; for some time in the 1900s it was a pub. Peeling back fitted carpets and layers of plasterboard, the couple discovered past lives etched into the wattle and daub. In the hallway a small box frame holds the Georgian treasures they and past owners have found, some beneath the floorboards: a penny, a bottle top, a hairpin and a trumpet-shaped brooch.