Martin Roberts is ploughing £500,000 of his own money into the “most worrying” project he's ever taken on after falling in love with a Welsh community – and he didn’t even tell his wife.
The Homes Under The Hammer presenter and property developer isn’t shy of hard work, having built an impressive portfolio.
But the 59-year-old telly star is now on a mission to help a community in the Welsh valleys in his most anxiety-inducing venture to date.
The former I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! contestant has told how he plans to bring a unique and important part of a community’s heritage back to life, including reopening the local pub.
Martin recently got the keys to the Hendrewen Hotel in Blaencwm at the top of the Rhondda Fawr valley without telling his wife Kirsty about his investment first so she couldn’t talk him out of it.
The much-loved pub had closed down in lockdown but Martin snapped it up at the end of 2022 after being left heart-broken that a village had “lost their heart”.
"I often act a bit on gut instinct, and possibly don't always tell my wife because sometimes I think there's a danger I will be talked out of things because they appear daft on the surface, I only sort of mention it when it's too late!” the new pub landlord told WalesOnline.
“I've never run a pub, I've never run a restaurant, and I've never run a hotel so, hey, what could possibly go wrong?!"
Martin told how he’s fallen in love with the area over the years and is so positive about the area and keen to catalyse further investment that he is putting over half a million pounds of his own money into the redevelopment and refurbishment of the Hendrewen.
His vision is to turn the pub into a '”really funky and fun bar, restaurant and gastropub” with references to the history of the area and its industrial heritage.
And he’s not stopping there as he has big plans for project in the surrounding area. He's hoping to build an additional accommodation block with disabled access rooms, a supporting, all-inclusive infrastructure for all terrain wheelchairs and three wheel mountain bike hire, a bike hire and outdoor activity hub, a restaurant expansion and a village shop stocking additional visitor supplies, plus a tourist and information centre.
The property expert told WalesOnline how he’d spend time in north Wales as a child but only started to explore south Wales in his presenting role on the BBC ’s Homes Under The Hammer, due to the amount of auction properties that come up there.
He told how he started to fall in love with the area and experienced a sense of being at home, at peace and happy.
His upbringing in a “very lower working class area” in Warrington helped him resonate with the unshakeable support for each other he felt in the south Wales communities he visited.
"I'd go to visit my grandmother and they didn't have any heating, just a fire, but the welcome there was super warm and when I'm trying to piece together why I'm so comfortable here it's because I really respect this old fashioned community value, which is amazing,” he explained to the publication.
"You sort of see in some ways the Wales that has struggled as a result of the mining industry and general lack of industry, and a lot of the properties I saw in the Valleys were in areas that were terribly badly hit, and yet this sense of community spirit still carries on."
Martin jumped at the chance of renovating the oldest farmhouse in the Rhondda when it came up for sale recently, and has since turned it into an AirBnb that can sleep up to 17 people.
But the telly personality wasn’t finished, and as he spent more time there during the renovation his love for the area was cemented and he knew he wanted to return.
"During the renovation I spent a lot of time there, a lot of time with the community, and I fell in love with the place that is just off the scale - the area around there, just at the top of the Rhondda valley - mountains, waterfalls, but more importantly the people, I've never come across a community that immediately felt so supportive,” he explained.
As Martin settled into becoming a regular face in the community, he was told of a project that peaked his interest.
Martin said: "I heard about the Rhondda tunnel, and obviously it's this incredible tourism project waiting to happen that's just got to be taken out of this stupid red tape that has stopped it happening so far.
"I went down the tunnel, saw it for myself and thought 'this is absolutely extraordinary, why the hell hasn't this been reopened?' - it's not going to cost that much in the whole scheme of things and it would revolutionise the tourism of the area, because the top end of this Rhondda valley is in danger of losing out."
Now a patron of the Rhondda Tunnel Society, Martin has been trying to help in any way he can to get the incredible industrial architecture reopened, all while renovating the Hendrewen Hotel.
Martin explained that he’s smitten with Wales now, but until a recent conversation with his dad, he couldn’t put his finger on the source of his affection for the nation.
He told the site: “I did randomly say to my dad about a month ago, 'do we have any Welsh in our family?' and he goes, 'ummm, well your great, great grandad was a sea captain out of Conwy and he married a woman from Cardiff'.
"I was like, 'dad, did it not occur to you that this might be vaguely significant at the moment while I try and work out why I have this mind-boggling affinity with Wales and the Welsh Valleys?'. Seems if you go three or four generations back, I am completely Welsh!"
