Charlotte Church will close her wellness retreat, The Dreaming, after five "beautiful years", the company has announced. The retreat, based in Rhydoldog House near Rhayader, Powys, offered retreats aimed at helping people reconnect with nature and spirituality.
The singer-songwriter bought the former home of fashion designer Laura Ashley in 2021, and its renovation later featured in a Discovery Channel documentary series. Church previously said she had spent "pretty much all my life savings" on the £1.5m, seven-bedroom property, which has origins in the 15th Century and was owned by the Ashley family until the death of Bernard Ashley in 2009. A 2021 planning application said Church wanted to transform the house into a carbon neutral wellbeing and healing retreat with four log cabins in the grounds.S1S2
Last month, the team announced it would be "pausing" operations to "reassess" what it should offer, and said it was "germinating new dreams for the future" and was set to "hibernate". It has now confirmed it is shutting down, saying it had hoped the pause would be a "period of hibernation, rather than an ending" but had come to realise it was the "end of our journey with The Dreaming". According to documents filed to Companies House in March 2025, there were five employees at the business.S1S2
Earlier this year, Church said the retreat was a response to the pressures of contemporary life, arguing that people are "crying out" for care, community, nature and belonging amid what she described as capitalist values and ideologies. Since opening, The Dreaming hosted more than 3,000 guests and offered a "pay what you can" scheme starting at £1 per night, as well as free stays for NHS workers.S2
In its closing statement on social media, the team thanked guests, saying that "thousands of you have found your way to this little corner of the Welsh hills" and that guests had "made The Dreaming what it is".S1S2
