The bestselling historical novelist on sharing a home with her daughter and grandchildren, her charity work and why she has no plans to retire.
The countryside is where I feel most at home. With my ex-husband, I used to live on a 200-acre farm on the North Yorkshire Moors, a working farm with crops, livestock and horses. I also used to rescue abandoned duck eggs and look after the ducklings.
Because I write about the Tudor period, I’d always dreamed about living in a Tudor house and, after my divorce, I found a place in rural Leicestershire. It’s wonderfully isolated with views across open fields. I still ride every week, but the horse is kept at a local stable, so the only animal companion I have at the moment is my six-year-old Irish setter, But-a, who is named after the Elvis Presley lyrics ‘You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog’.
I bought the house with my daughter Victoria and her husband, and we each have our own ‘wing’. It’s a brilliant idea because we have a multigenerational family home, but we also have our own space. Plus, I get to see my wonderful grandchildren every day. If my daughter needs me to babysit, I’m just at the other end of the house.
My son Adam lives in North London with his girlfriend and when I’m down there for business, I always stay with him. It’s the best of both worlds, really.
Although I was born in Nairobi, I left aged two, after my father died in a plane crash. I would never claim Kenya as my home, but I have deep affection for Africa. While researching a book [A Respectable Trade] in the Gambia, I got talking to a headmaster at a rural school. He mentioned how wonderful it would be to have a well to be able to grow vegetables and fruit to supplement the students’ diet of rice, and have nuts and oranges to sell at market. I asked him how much he needed. He said, ‘£400’. I gave him the money there and then.
My charity Gardens for the Gambia has since provided 250 wells – one for every rural school in the country. Even after all the years I’ve been writing, I consider that my greatest achievement.
My grandmother was a suffragette and as a feminist mother, I raised my daughter to expect equal pay and education. I raised my son to respect women and never to use his superior strength to abuse them. Those ideas were definitely influenced by the loss of my father and watching my mother cope with financial hardship and the attitudes of a more sexist era.
My latest book Royal Witch is set in 1420, when Eleanor Cobham arrives at the court of Henry V. The great European and American witch hunts were, of course, in the 1600s, but the ‘supernatural’ is as old as time itself. Before modern science, spells, alchemy and horoscopes were practised by everyone from the uneducated to the most learned scholars.
Eleanor isn’t some mad old lady living in the woods, she is educated and ends up a duchess.
Royal Witch, by Philippa Gregory (HarperCollins) RRP: £25. Publication date 20 October 2026
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