Countryfile star Julia Bradbury’s love of rural life and the healing power of nature dates way back to her “idyllic” childhood.

Julia Bradbury shared all about her childhood rectory home in Rutland (Image: Getty)

Julia Bradbury was born in Dublin, but spent her childhood in a stunning rectory home surrounded by orchards and sweeping countryside views. Talking about the location that first inspired her passion for nature, she told House Beautiful: “I grew up in a quaint village in Rutland, the smallest county in England, in a 400-year-old rectory next to a church.”

Her parents still have access to that location today – but it is her childhood years there which she’s most fond of, when life at home was “idyllic, peaceful and loving”. The now 54-year-old TV host has vivid memories of everything, even down to a favourite apple tree in the garden. She told Lincolnshire Life: “From a very early age, probably about six, I’ve been exposed to the outdoors.

A view of the Rutland reservoir close to Julia Bradbury’s home (Image: Getty)

“What do I love about it? It’s so engaging. It’s all around you and there’s nowhere you can’t explore – it’s where your imagination and your walking boots will take you.”

Her favourite outdoor partner to this day is her dad, a former marketing director at British Steel who would indulge in escapism from his hectic everyday life by walking with her.

Growing up, the pair would camp, fish and walk together, as well as exploring the picturesque reservoir on their doorstep.

The only outdoor pursuit he didn’t join her in doing, she says, was scrumping apples from the orchards that surrounded their home.

Meanwhile, Julia’s mum Chrissi started her own couture fashion business within the walls of the rectory as a “cottage industry, working from home” before opening boutiques in Sheffield and London’s Knightsbridge.

Today, Julia – a courageous breast cancer survivor and mum-of-three – retains her passion for the great outdoors.

She might no longer live in the “beautiful” rectory that she was so fond of as a child, but her current home in London is giving her just as much joy.

It’s surrounded by collectible items from her travels around the world, everywhere from Mexico to Bali, with perhaps her most prized possession being a huge stone Buddha she bought for £500.

In youth she had her beloved apple tree, but now that’s been replaced by a mature London plane tree outside the window of her current home, which she poignantly says provided enormous comfort when she was healing from cancer.

She confessed: “During my recovery, it became my friend and I spoke to it and expressed my gratitude as I got stronger.”