Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen

He is sometimes credited as "Laurence Llewelyn",[4] and the components of his name are sometimes misspelled,[5] as "Lawrence".[6] On Changing Rooms, he is occasionally jocularly styled "Lord Laurence", a play on Laurence Olivier and Llewelyn-Bowen's flamboyance.

Laurence Roderick Bowen was born in 1965 in Kensington, London, to parents Trefor and Patricia Bowen (née Wilks). His father, an orthopaedic surgeon at Harley Street and, under the NHS, at St James' Hospital, Balham, South London, died of leukaemia in 1974, aged 42, when Laurence was nine. He went to primary school at Julians, in Leigham Court Road, Streatham, where his favourite subject was art, especially needlework.[1] His mother, a teacher, died in 2002.[7] He has a brother called Edward and a sister called Frances. He is of Welsh descent.[3]

According to his website, Llewelyn-Bowen was educated at Alleyn's School in Dulwich and later graduated from the Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts (which became a constituent college of the University of the Arts London) in 1986 with an unspecified Fine Art degree.[7]

After graduating, Llewelyn-Bowen worked for the Harefield Group of Companies and the interior design firm Peter Leonard Associates. In 1989 he started his own design consultancy.

Laurence presented the BBC television series Changing Rooms.

On 13 April 2009 he presented a documentary on BBC One in the West region in which he went In Search of England's Green & Pleasant Land.[8] The programme explored the threats to the rural way of life from urban creep and the loss of local services.

A study of Laurence's family tree featured in the BBC One show Who Do You Think You Are?, which was first aired on 29 September 2008. It showed that Llewelyn-Bowen's mother's family had a seafaring history.[1]

Between 2009 and 2011 Laurence appeared on every episode of the ITV show House Gift.

Laurence appeared as a judge on the 2010 series of the ITV reality talent show Popstar to Operastar as a critic alongside Meat Loaf, and classically trained mentors Katherine Jenkins and Rolando Villazón. The series was hosted by Myleene Klass and Alan Titchmarsh.

Between 2010 and 2011, Laurence presented the daytime ITV show Auction Party.

The BBC One series, Hidden Houses of Wales, featured Laurence as tour guide of historical houses throughout Wales.[9] The programme premiered on 4 January 2010 and ran for two series. The series was licensed to streaming service, Netflix, in the U.S. and rebranded as Hidden Houses, premiering on the service on 31 December 2016.[10]

He features frequently in the BBC programme, DIY SOS: The Big Build as a designer.[11]

In 2017, he joined Australia's Seven Network reality renovation series House Rules as a new judge.[12][13]

In 2008 he began hosting a Sunday morning radio show The Sunday Spa on Classic FM.[15]

In 2002 Llewelyn-Bowen made a cameo appearance in the comedy series The League of Gentlemen, in which he comes to decorate the garden of one of the characters. He acts as a depressed, smoking, and comically bald version of himself, and is killed by a collapsing wall.

In 2004 Llewelyn-Bowen designed the interior of the Inc Bar in Greenwich, England in a former 1830s music hall. The design features Larry's Bar, named after Llewelyn-Bowen and "the Divan", a dimly lit nook, a sort of make-out room.[16]

He has also presented a three-part BBC special Taste (2002), about the history of interior design, and in autumn 2005 he began presenting the weekly BBC1 travel show Holiday 2006. His books include Fantasy Rooms: Inspirational Designs from the BBC Series (1999), Display (2001), "Home Front": Inside Out (2002), Design Rules (2003) and A Pinch of Posh (2006) co-written with his wife, Jackie. He has also made a guest appearance on Changing Rooms' American counterpart, Trading Spaces.

In March 2005 he starred in a one-off mockumentary as a prospective candidate for Parliament. His party, the Purple Party, "lobbied" for a restoration of Britain's heritage, and several extreme architectural measures such as tearing down all buildings that did not conform to their surroundings.

In January 2006, Llewelyn-Bowen and his wife Jackie were offered a place on the Valentine's Day celebrity couples edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? They appeared on the show managing to reach the £1 million question, before answering it incorrectly and dropping from £500,000 down to £32,000 (a loss of £468,000). For the first time ever, Celador allowed Llewelyn-Bowen and his wife retry the show after the company claimed that the last question "didn't meet their standards". After returning and being shown a different £1 million question, the couple decided not to risk losing £468,000 for the second time and won £500,000 for their chosen charity, The Shooting Star Children's Hospice, of which Llewelyn-Bowen and his wife are both patrons. Their new question was about the first man to travel to space twice, and the correct answer to the question was Gus Grissom. They decided not to risk it this time and walked away with the £500,000. This amount is the highest amount that any celebrity couple has won on any British edition of Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?[17] The allegedly misleading question was "Translated from the Latin, what is the motto of the United States?" The answer given was "In God We Trust" which is originally English and has in fact been the motto of the United States since 1956. The intended answer had been "Out of Many, One" which is a translation of the Latin phrase E pluribus unum, which is found on the Great Seal, however it is not actually the current United States motto. E pluribus unum had been the de facto motto but was never legally declared as such.[17]

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen opening a charity shop in Stow-on-the-Wold in 2009

In 2007 he designed Decodance for Blackpool Illuminations, featuring six illuminated burlesque beauties.[18][19]

In November 2007 he and his family were depicted in the Living TV series To the Manor Bowen. Bowen designed a line of wallpaper in collaboration with the British Home Decor Company Graham & Brown.

In 2008 he returned to Blackpool Illuminations to design Venus Reborn, a theatric tableau with a 15-minute show of sound, light and water effects.[20]

In 2009 Bowen released two ranges of papercrafting products in conjunction with Trimcraft, called Retro Rose and Venaissence.[21]

Bowen was the Creative Director For the 2010 Blackpool Illuminations, designing new illuminations including dinosaurs, vampires and ghouls.[22]

Llewelyn-Bowen has been head judge on reality TV show The Apartment[23] since 2012.

Bowen was also a radio presenter for Classic FM until June 2015 when he was replaced by Alexander Armstrong.

In November 2014 he designed a Christmas attraction, Magical Journey, at the Belfry Golf Club near Sutton Coldfield, which was heavily criticised, receiving hundreds of complaints and the epithet "Tragic Journey" on its opening day; the event closed down in mid-December, and apologies were sent to ticket holders who were advised to contact their banks for refunds.[24]

Since 2017 he has appeared on the Australian TV series House Rules in seasons 5-8 as one of three judges, co-starring with Home Beautiful editor in chief Wendy Moore, and award winning Australian architect Drew Heath. In 2020, Moore and Heath were replaced by interior designer Kyly Clarke and builder Saul Myers.

In 2017 he was co-presenter alongside Neville Knott on the Irish TV3 lifestyle program Showhouse Showdown (Vision Independent Productions)

In 2019, he appeared in a comedic advertising campaign for online bathroom retailer Victorian Plumbing in the UK.[25]

In 2019 he took part in the BBC series Celebrity Painting Challenge. In 2019, he became a judge alongside Juliet Ashworth in the Australian programme Instant Hotel.

In 2020 he made a cameo appearance in a video by YouTuber Max Fosh about roundabouts, where he copied the dance of an 18ft inflatable man.[26]

In 2020, Bowen designed a furniture collection with British furniture manufacturer, wholesaler and dropshipper Artisan Furniture, consisting of handmade, solid wood furniture designs showcasing carving, painted and dark stained furniture pieces.[27] The LUX collection by Llewelyn-Bowen is set to be available for both dropship[28] and wholesale.[29]

Until 2004 Llewelyn-Bowen lived in Kidbrooke, South East London. He, his wife Jackie and their two daughters, Cecile (born 1995) and Hermione (born 1998), moved to a 17th-century, grade-II listed manor house in Siddington, a small village near Cirencester, Gloucestershire in April 2007.[3] He and his wife are ambassadors to the aid agency CARE International UK and in February 2008 visited the cyclone-hit areas of Bangladesh. They are also active patrons for children's cancer charity CLIC Sargent and Shooting Star Children's Hospice.

Llewelyn-Bowen is also a patron of the children's charity MERU, co-founded by his father Trefor Llewelyn-Bowen with Bill Bond in 1970.

He has a home in Port Isaac, Cornwall, which is well known as the filming location of the popular television series Doc Martin.

He is related to Emanuel Bowen, map maker to King George II.[30]

Llewelyn-Bowen has a cameo appearance within the best-selling British alternative science fiction comedy novel Snuff Fiction by Robert Rankin.[31]

Llewelyn-Bowen also features as a subject within the song 'Black Metal Interior Design' by metal band Bleating Apocalypse.[32] He has since sent the band a series of Christmas cards and videos featuring himself to show during gigs.[33]

• Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen at IMDb
• BBC Biography BBC.co.uk
• Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen presents on Classic FM