Charlotte Church has announced the closure of her The Dreaming wellness retreat amid “exponentially complexifying crises that have been spreading out ahead of us all like cracking ice”.
The Celebrity Traitors star opened The Dreaming at Rhydoldog House, Wales – the former home of designer Laura Ashley – in April 2023. Church, now 40, had purchased the sprawling property in 2021 and its renovation was the subject of a Discovery Channel documentary series.
However, after four years in operation, The Dreaming will be going into “hibernation” to “reassess what it is we should be offering”.
A statement posted on social media explained: “Through the harvest season, it is important to discern what requires attention from that which is falling away, what needs to be put to compost.
“We need the chance to compost, mulch, go fallow, listen deeply to the earth, so that we can germinate new dreams for the future.
“After all, we would be nowhere had we not first had a dream that was given time to sprout and blossom.”
It added that while guests – including those at free-to-attend retreats for NHS workers and activists – have shaped “unexpected, exquisite, life-changing” experiences, “it is a different world today than the one we started off in just a short half decade ago”.
“As we stare clear-eyed at the exponentially complexifying crises that have been spreading out ahead of us all like cracking ice, we at The Dreaming need to reassess, with candour and courage, what it is we should be offering to be in service,” the statement read.
“And so we must dream. And to do so we must hibernate. We cannot say when exactly we will be returning from the dream realm, but return we shall.”
Anyone who had been hoping to visit The Dreaming still has a chance to, as there are some spaces left on retreats taking place before the end of the year.
The statement concluded with a “deep and loving thank you to all those who have supported us over the years, each one of you who has stepped through our faerie door and poured your own dreams into the cauldron”.
“It has been a great honour to conspire with you in magic and mystery,” it said.
It comes after a “forest school” founded by Church in her native Wales was forced to move to a new premises amid a dispute over planning permission.
The Awen Project opened in Wenvoe, near Cardiff, in 2024 but was found to have been operating without proper permissions over the summer.
A retrospective application submitted by Church's charity for a change of use was rejected by Vale of Glamorgan Council, with officials pointing to concerns over transport safety and noise pollution. The outdoor learning project has since relocated to a temporary new home.
While continuing to tour and make occasional television appearances, Church has poured much of her energy into her projects outside the entertainment industry in recent years.
Speaking to The Independent earlier this year, the former child star said The Dreaming was a response to the pressures of contemporary life.
“There are some very difficult transitional times for us as human beings on this earth,” she said. “This is also due to the excesses in which society is so much based around capitalist values and ideologies, meaning there is then less around care, people, community, nature and belonging.
“We are crying out for these things, every single one of us.”
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