In the first episode of a new strand of Homing, Katherine May frames the home as a place to slow down and take refuge from the overstimulating world beyond.

Katherine is known for her bestselling book Wintering, which explores the importance of rest and retreat during the fallow periods of life that we all experience. 

The conversation delves into what happens when we allow ourselves to notice natural rhythms and cycles: the solstices, the shifting light, and the subtle signals that tell us when it’s time to slow down. 

Katherine describes home as a sensory environment – almost as an extension of the body itself – and how the spaces we live in can either soothe the nervous system, or quietly overwhelm it. 

The conversation turns to boredom and creativity – and why giving children unstructured time and space can be one of the most generous things we do for them. 

Katherine helps us understand the home as a place where we can learn to restore ourselves, enabling us to go back out into the world with renewed strength.

To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version

Instagram: @homingwithmatt

TikTok: @homing.with.matt

Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic

Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 

Produced by @podshoponline

For exclusive walking tours – from Dan Pearson’s year-round outdoor kitchen to Polly Morgan’s taxidermy zebra – join us on Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

For interior designer and art curator Natasha Landers, home is where the public and private worlds meet. Her Walthamstow house is a curated gallery, where Black art is not just displayed, but lives among her daily life.

Natasha grew up in a Hackney council house, sharing a bedroom with her brother in a home where space was tight, but imagination wasn’t. 

From an early age, she found ways to express herself – decorating her bedroom and reworking her clothes. 

She was the first in her family to go to university, leaving the noise of East London for the stillness of the Welsh valleys. The silence was unsettling. No traffic. No sirens. Just the realisation that home isn’t only about place – it’s about what your body recognises as safe. 

Today, Natasha is a diversity consultant, working in boardrooms where she's often the only Black person in the room. Spaces where she’s learned to hold her ground – and gently challenge how others see the world. 

Her home has become part of that work, and she opens it up as an exhibition space for Black artists.  

She’s lived there for 26 years, shaping it slowly and conscientiously. A roll-top bath once sat in the living room for two years, waiting for the moment it could finally be installed.

It’s also a home that knows how to slow down. 

After years of people-pleasing and burnout, Natasha has learned to honour rest – and to find pleasure in small, everyday rituals. 

This is an episode about patience, knowing when to perform and when to stop, and how a home shaped over time can become a place where you’re finally allowed to just be. 

The episode was recorded at Natasha’s home in Walthamstow.

A full tour of the house and art collection is available to our Patreon community.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version

Instagram: @homingwithmatt

TikTok: @homing.with.matt

Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic

Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 

Produced by @podshoponline

The full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

For Dan Pearson, working with the landscape isn’t simply his profession — it’s how he makes sense of the world.

In this emotional conversation, he opens up about self-image, mindfulness and the alchemy of gardening – something that can feel like magic, but is really about careful attention and a deep respect for the natural rhythms of life.

Dan fondly recalls his childhood home: a dilapidated house where wildlife knew no boundaries, with rat holes under doors and vegetation pressing up against the furniture.

Today, he lives in a modest stone farmhouse with small windows, nestled into the side of the valley, with a huge landscape that opens out in front. He and his partner cook and eat in their outdoor kitchen year-round, watching the weather roll in over Freezing Hill. At the bottom of the garden, there’s a pond for swimming or meditation. It’s the embodiment of the prospect-refuge theory.

This is an episode about humility, about living in sync with nature and understanding that as human beings, we're part of a wonderful ecosystem much larger than ourselves.  

The episode was recorded at Dan’s home in Somerset.

A full tour of his garden and outbuildings is available to our Patreon community.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

Dan also publishes Dig Delve, an online magazine about his Somerset garden, with photography and editorial by his partner Huw Morgan. 

Homing listeners can use the discount code HOMING2026 for 15% off annual or quarterly subscriptions.

Website: www.digdelve.com

Instagram: @digdelve 

Dan’s personal Instagram: @coyotewillow

To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version

Instagram: @homingwithmatt

TikTok: @homing.with.matt

Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic

Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 

Produced by @podshoponline

The full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

For homewares designer Matilda Goad, balance isn’t just a design principle – it’s a way of living. Her home is a reflection of that: comfortable and familiar, but full of playful touches.

Growing up in a country cottage, boredom became a lesson in invention. With her grandfather an artist and her mother a fashion designer, Matilda was surrounded by creativity from an early age and developed a strong drive to prove herself.

That ambition runs through everything she does. From designing her iconic scallop-edged lampshade to opening a new hardware store off the Pimlico Road, Matilda has a talent for taking the functional and adding a playful twist. 

Her home in London is an extension of her visual identity and the backdrop to some of life’s most significant moments. Both of her children were born at home – one in the sitting room, the other in the bedroom. For Matilda, home is psychological safety: a place that can hold everything.

We talk about sensitivity to environments, using anxiety as fuel, and the discipline required to sustain creative drive. She shares practical rituals to reset, from breathwork exercises to lighting techniques, and the realities of building a business slowly and organically.

This episode is about purpose, momentum and how our homes mirror the lives we’re building.

– Matt

An extended version of the tour is available to our Patreon community.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version

Instagram: @homingwithmatt

TikTok: @homing.with.matt

Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic

Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 

Produced by @podshoponline

The full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

For a special Christmas episode of Homing, I was invited into the home of cookery writer and ultimate host, Skye McAlpine.

Skye is like a modern-day “Mother Christmas”. She was raised between London and Venice by parents who were great bon viveurs, and her childhood home was an open house, filled with guests, conversation and celebration. It’s there that she absorbed the idea that a home is meant for sharing – a philosophy she has carried into both her life and her work.

If you follow Skye online, you’ll see that her kitchen is at the heart of everything she does; a space to cook and gather those she loves around one long table. For Skye, hosting is an expression of love, and choosing a favourite event is, in her words, “like choosing a favourite child”.

The glamorous version of her life is only one side of the story. Skye also shows me the unseen, everyday moments of life at home.

During our tour, she laughs about the dust that gathers on every surface, which makes her cough. We talk about insomnia, doomscrolling, introversion, and the importance of not letting the pressure to appear perfect stop you from putting yourself out there.

This is an episode about place, belonging, childhood, and what it really means to make people feel at home.

So before your Christmas dinners, I hope you give this episode a listen and absorb Skye’s wisdom for creating a table full of love.

This episode was filmed in person at Skye’s London Victorian townhouse.

– Matt

To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version

Instagram: @homingwithmatt

TikTok: @homing.with.matt

Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic

Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 

Produced by @podshoponline

The full visualised home tour is available to our Patreon community.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

Max Rollitt is a highly respected interior decorator and antiques dealer. Extraordinary pieces pass through his hands every day, yet most of the objects he chooses to live with at home have little monetary value. Instead, they are tokens of respect and love.

The conversation begins with Max’s childhood in Winchester, where he struggled at school because he processed information in images – something we’d now recognise as dyslexia. It’s this visual approach that is the foundation for a ‘Max Rollitt’ interior: decorating a home the way an artist composes a painting.

Nowhere is that sensibility clearer than in his family farmhouse in the South Downs. Every piece of furniture and object has a story to tell: artworks from his sons, photographs of his wife, and handmade gifts from his mentors. During our private home tour, some of these objects even moved Max to tears. 

We also talk about how to create a nurturing environment for creative children, the grounding effect of rural life and finding personal fulfilment through spirituality.

This episode is about how the objects we surround ourselves with are more than aesthetic items – they are containers for people and experiences.

This episode was recorded in person at Max’s farmhouse in the South Downs.

– Matt

An extended version of the tour is available to our Patreon community.

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

To hear more from us:

YouTube:
Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version
Instagram: @homingwithmatt
TikTok: @homing.with.matt
Contact: Email us at [email protected]

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 
Produced by @podshoponline

Much like her taxidermy-based sculptures, Polly Morgan is an artist who delights in looking beneath the surface. 

Her home in Camberwell is deliberately minimalist - a space viewers may recognise from Netflix’s Baby Reindeer. As she prepares to move out after 13 years, with most of her possessions already shipped off to the countryside, she reflects on the highs and lows of her time there. 

Growing up in the Cotswolds, Polly’s childhood was characterised by watching animals die and by seeing her father dissect bodies to understand anatomy. Those early experiences formed her way of seeing, not as something morbid, but as a curiosity about life and its endings.

Entirely self-taught, Polly has always worked slightly outside of artistic convention. She speaks about wanting to notice what most people overlook, to find the parts of things that are usually hidden.

It’s with this same outlook that she talks about the loss of her sister and mother, and the decision to say goodbye to her city life as she prepares to return to the countryside.

This is a conversation about artistic process, growing older, family, and learning what to hold on to and what to let go of.

This episode was recorded in person at Polly’s home in Camberwell.

To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel, Homing with Matt, to watch the video version
Instagram: @homingwithmatt
TikTok: @homing.with.matt
Contact: Email us at [email protected]

For more content and exclusive walking tours:
Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office
Produced by @podshoponline

Chris Packham has always fascinated me. As a broadcaster, naturalist, and conservationist, he’s helped millions connect with wildlife and the natural world through shows like BBC’s Springwatch – but sitting down with him in his home, I realised how much of his story is about creating refuge, both at home and within himself.

In this deeply personal conversation, Chris speaks candidly about his childhood in Southampton, being diagnosed with autism in his forties, and how he has designed a home that helps him manage sensory sensitivities – ironically filled with furniture and artwork that is deliberately uncomfortable.

He reflects on solitude versus loneliness and how nature provides safety, structure and healing when the human world feels overwhelming.

It’s a conversation about finding comfort in discomfort, about refuge and resilience, and, above all, about what it means to feel at home in the world.

It’s also one of the most memorable episodes I’ve ever recorded. 

This episode was recorded in person at Chris' home in the New Forest.

To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel Homing with Matt, to watch the video version

Instagram: @homingwithmatt

TikTok: @homing.with.matt

Contact: Email us at [email protected]

For more content and exclusive walking tours:

Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

The Homing podcast explores the importance of home in shaping who we are.

Join Matt Gibberd, author and co-founder of The Modern House, as he takes listeners inside the homes of inspiring guests to examine what really happens inside our walls – how they influence our emotions, creativity and sense of self.

Featuring leading voices from art, film, wellbeing and beyond, Homing is a thoughtful journey into remarkable homes and the minds that shape them. 

Be prepared for tears, laughter, and everything in between.

"The Best Podcasts To Listen To" – Vogue 

Homing is produced by Podshop, with music by Simeon Walker.

Homing is an independent podcast and operates as a separate venture from The Modern House Limited. While Matt Gibberd is a co-founder of The Modern House, all opinions expressed on Homing are solely those of the host and his guests.

To hear more from us:

YouTube: Subscribe to our channel Homing with Matt Gibberd, to watch the video version
Instagram: @homingwithmatt
TikTok: @homing.with.matt
Contact: Email us at [email protected]

For more content and exclusive walking tours:
Patreon: http://patreon.com/HomingWithMatt

Matt Gibberd’s book, A Modern Way to Live, is available here: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320176/a-modern-way-to-live-by-gibberd-matt/9780241480496

Music by @simeonwalkermusic
Identity & design by @lena.winkler.creative.office 
Produced by @podshoponline

Bethan designs everything from furniture to lighting and textiles, and some of her work is currently on display at the Design Museum in London.  

She presents herself to the world like a human peacock. She dyes her hair different colours, wears layers of vivid clothing, and puts dots on her cheeks.  

Her flat in east London isn’t exactly demure either. We recorded this podcast in the company of various hats and handbags, a jar of balloons in liquid, and a lamp shaped like a jellyfish.  

In this conversation, we dig into the differences between collecting and hoarding. The objects Bethan lives with are like a cast of characters in a film. The way she arranges them isn’t just about what looks good together; she’s also thinking about the stories they tell.  

Going back to her childhood, she tells me about dressing like “a 1950s cool dinner lady”, and how watching TV inspired her to apply for the Royal College of Art.  

We talk about the impact of bullying, and how she’s been shaped by her dyslexia.  

She’s a fascinating character, and I really enjoyed getting to know her better.  

For more:

PLATFORM: Bethan Laura Wood

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Producer: Laconic Collective

Graphic Design: Ben Tucker

Music: Simeon Walker

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