This is the luxurious Cornish estate where The Salt Path author Raynor Winn and her husband Moth have been hiding out since doubts were raised over their ‘true’ story of becoming homeless.
The author and her husband – real names Sally and Tim Walker – have barely been seen in public since questions were asked about the veracity of the story that became a literary sensation.
Ms Winn’s memoir detailed how their decision to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path was motivated by the repossession of their home in Wales after a business deal with a ‘friend’ went calamitously wrong, leaving them without a roof over their heads.
But following the runaway success of the Salt Path and a Hollywood film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, the Daily Mail can now reveal the couple are living in a stunning Grade II listed stone farmhouse with a swimming pool and private beach overlooking the Helford River.
It has since been claimed that their financial predicament was in fact linked to Ms Winn’s alleged theft of £64,000 from a former employer.
Experts have also questioned her portrayal of her husband’s debilitating neurological condition, corticobasal degeneration (CBD), which also lies at the heart of the book.
The furore saw Penguin announce that it would be delaying the publication of her fourth book, On Winter Hill, which was due out in October.
Now the Daily Mail can reveal how the couple have been lying low at this sprawling property set in 190 acres of farmland, providing the couple with all the space they need for walking and camping.
The luxurious Cornish estate where Salt Path author Raynor Winn and her husband have been hiding out since doubts were raised over their ‘true’ story
Now the Daily Mail can reveal how the couple have been lying low at this sprawling property set in 190 acres of farmland, providing the couple with all the space they need for walking and camping
The author and her husband – real names Sally and Tim Walker – have barely been seen in public since down since questions were asked about the veracity of the story
It belongs to a wealthy, land and property owner James Lyall, a former farmer who has owned it since the 1980s according to official documents.
While the exact arrangement with Mr Lyall isn’t clear, the couple are believed to be renting it and moved to the house less than two years ago.
A friend of the owner has said: ‘He has rented out the house for several years now.
‘It is the most stunning house in the most wonderful, peaceful, private setting.’
The property is thought to be worth in excess of £10 million.
The friend added: ‘There is another property for sale at the moment which is being marketed at £8.5million. It is nowhere near as big or with as much land, so you can guess what this could fetch.
‘But there is absolutely no way he would sell up. It means far too much to him and his family. Why would anyone let it go if they had no financial pressure to do so?’
Another local said: ‘We’ve known for ages it was Raynor and Moth up there. A friend of mine was told by the owner himself. They moved in long before all this fuss over the book and the film.’
It belongs to a wealthy, land and property owner James Lyall, a former farmer who has owned it since the 1980s according to official documents
While the exact arrangement with Mr Lyall isn’t clear, the couple are believed to be renting it and moved to the house less than two years ago
Experts have also questioned her portrayal of her husband’s debilitating neurological condition, corticobasal degeneration (CBD), which also lies at the heart of the book
Before moving to the farmhouse, they were living on a cider farm near Lostwithiel offered to them by another wealthy benefactor who was inspired by their story.
City investor Bill Cole, 58, contacted the couple on Twitter and invited them to move into his £1million Cornish cider farm after being deeply moved by their story of homelessness and Moth’s declining health. But claims he was ultimately left feeling ‘gaslit’ and betrayed by the pair.
In an interview with The Observer newspaper, which carried out the original investigation into the couple, he told of his shock when he was informed by Moth in 2021 that he had been ‘told not to plan beyond Christmas’ due to his health.
But when Ms Winn’s third book, Landlines, was published in September 2022, Mr Cole read how in the winter of 2021, a neurologist told Moth his brain was ‘normal’.
‘I was reading it on the train,’ said Mr Cole, ‘and I just went ‘What the hell?’ It just makes no sense whatsoever.’
He said he sent a message to Ms Winn asking why if there was such good news, they had not told him. He said that she replied but did not address the point.
In the nearby village of Constantine, locals say Winn has been a regular visitor but hasn’t been spotted since the scandal broke last month.
One shopkeeper said: ‘Everybody knows she lives around here, she’s probably been in here.
‘I was never convinced by that book because I’ve done trips where you walk every single day carrying everything I don’t buy you can do all that while ill.
‘She’s obviously raking it in from the story though.’
Another villager remembers the author being a guest of honour at the Constantine Book Group in 2020 where she talked about her life and signed copies.
They said: ‘I know exactly who lives there. I don’t think anybody has seen her since this all came out.
‘There are a lot of people in the village who are very unhappy about all this. Certainly people have been talking about it.
‘We would see her and Moth around from time to time but not for months before all this. I think she was doing a book tour but I don’t know where she is now.’
Winn herself has shared occasional snapshots of her rural Cornish life with her 80,000 Instagram followers including voting in last year’s general election at the Constantine WI Hall.
Another picture – believed to have been taken in their current home – shows Moth relaxing in a chair in a conservatory reading a copy of Seamus Heaney’s classic novel Beowulf.
The pair met as teenagers growing up in Burton upon Trent, Staffs, before moving to Pwllheli in Gwynedd with their son and daughter in the early 1990s. There they set about renovating a rural property, complete with holiday let.
In 2007 they remortgaged to purchase a ramshackle doer-upper in south-west France, just a few miles from a magnificent chateau belonging to one of Moth’s brothers and next door to a pigeon tower owned by his younger sibling.
Said to be worth between 20,000 and 35,000 euros, the property is still owned by the couple – a fact some have suggested means they were never truly ‘homeless’.
In her statement, Ms Winn claimed that they visited only once and due to its state it was ‘impossible’ to live in.
‘What we own in France is an uninhabitable ruin in a bramble patch,’ she wrote.
Before moving to the farmhouse, they were living on a cider farm near Lostwithiel offered to them by another wealthy benefactor who was inspired by their story
It comes after the couple’s financial predicament was linked to Ms Winn’s theft of £64,000 from a former employer
In 2013, the couple’s own home was repossessed, the circumstances behind which form the crux of the recent controversy. After finishing their walk, which took place over the summers of 2013 and 2014, the couple settled in a flat in a converted Methodist chapel in the Cornish village of Polruan.
According to Ms Winn’s telling of the story, they bumped into the owner of the property by chance after sitting beside her on a bench towards the end of her trek, and she offered them her flat to rent.
The couple then moved to Haye Farm at the invitation of Mr Cole. In an interview with The Observer newspaper, which carried out the original investigation into the couple, he told of his shock when he was informed by Moth in 2021 that he had been ‘told not to plan beyond Christmas’ due to his health.
But when Ms Winn’s third book, Landlines, was published in September 2022, Mr Cole read how in the winter of 2021, a neurologist told Moth his brain was ‘normal’.
‘I was reading it on the train,’ said Mr Cole, ‘and I just went ‘What the hell?’ It just makes no sense whatsoever.’
He said he sent a message to Ms Winn asking why if there was such good news, they had not told him. He said that she replied but did not address the point.
Not long after, they terminated their tenancy at Haye Farm, a year earlier than agreed.
In her statement, Ms Winn addressed allegations that Moth had ‘made up his illness’.
She wrote: ‘This utterly vile, unfair, and false suggestion has emotionally devastated Moth, who has fought so hard against the insidious condition of Corticobasal Syndrome.’
She also published excerpts from two clinic letters relating to her husband’s treatment, which she claims show ‘he is treated for CBD/S and has been for many years’.
