In an age when famous lives are picked apart under the harsh lights of social media, few tales inspire like a shy love born in the most ordinary circumstances. Richard Fairs, a 60-year-old chartered building surveyor from Bristol, has become an unlikely source of public intrigue — not for his leading roles in blockbusters or appearances on red carpets, but for the fact that he is the loyal companion to one of Britain’s best-loved comedians: Miranda Hart. Their private wedding in July 2024, which had always lurked somewhere beneath the veil of secrecy Hart drew down with the publication of her memoir I Haven’t Been Entirely Honest With You, transformed Fairs from a background figure to an emblem of hope, humility, and second-chance wonder.
As of December 2025, while Hart is out promoting her book and occasionally making rare appearances together — such as their glitzy date night at Strictly Come Dancing — Fairs has remained unflinchingly private. Yet his narrative provides a welcome outlier to the excesses of showbiz: one of expertise in heritage preservation, family dedication — and finding love on the eve of a global pandemic. This story looks at Fairs’s professional legacy, his whirlwind romance with Hart and the quiet revolution he is fomenting in building conservation. For midlifers charting their own courses, Fairs’ journey is a testament to reinvention without grandstanding.
From Watford to Building Frontlines: Roots into Resilience
Richard William Fairs was born in 1964 in Watford, Hertfordshire, a nondescript commuter town to the north of London that is best known for its concrete sprawl rather than architectural marvels. Raised in a working-class home, Fairs’ attention was lured at a young age to forms — not the tall buildings of fantasy but the skeletal bones that made up ordinary architecture. “Bricks and mortar can talk if you know how to listen,” he wrote once in a rare LinkedIn post, from an account for his company, The Building Consultancy. The poetic streak, an oddity in a surveyor, was the vessel of the empathetic core that lay beneath his technical brilliance.
Fairs studied Building Surveying at Thames Polytechnic (now the University of Greenwich) and left in the mid-1980s during Britain’s building boom under the Thatcher government. The 1980s were also a time of massive change for the UK’s construction industry, which was undergoing deregulation and rapid expansion while at the same time being faced with the shortcomings of creaking infrastructure. Young Fairs cut his teeth in entry-level jobs at little firms in the South East, drinking linden tea and making condition surveys on residential property and mastering the art of spotting damp before it was disaster. By the early 1990s, he had completed his Diploma in Building Conservation, a qualification that was going to shape his specialism. Heritage sites, including Georgian townhouses and Victorian mills, were his canvas — places where history required a sensitive touch more than it did dynamite.
The turning point came in 1997, when Fairs established The Building Consultancy Ltd in Bristol. At 33, he was an upstart betting on boutique expertise versus corporate scale. Bristol, with its Georgian grandeur and post-industrial grit, was the ideal setting. There are more than 2,000 listed buildings in the city — and many of them suffer from England’s damp climate. Fairs’ firm was a leader in “precision diagnostics,” employing noninvasive tools like thermal imaging and moisture mapping to restore buildings without stripping away the soul inside. Its first customers were local councils and private estates, attracted by his no-nonsense reports that weighed cost against cultural value.
One of Fairs’ early major projects was to restore a 17th-century wool merchant’s house in Clifton, that hillside upper-crusty part of Bristol. Faced with subsidence from coal mining — a common woe in the West Country — he developed a helical piling system that preserved the original oak beams. The project, which was completed in 2000, won a smattering of praise from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) and established the tone for his firm’s ethos: fixes that are contemporary but sustainable and take cues from history. ‘We’re not just repairing walls, we’re preserving memories,’ Fairs told Western Business in a 2025 profile — his first major post-marriage interview.
The Building Consultancy continued to expand, over the next 20 years, with a staff of 15 by way of 2025. Fairs’ work ranges from commercial surveys for projects in Bristol’s harbourside developments to heritage jobs for National Trust properties. He has advised on flood resilience in homes built post-2014 on the Somerset Levels — which incorporate green tech such as permeable paving. In an industry frequently accused of short-termism, Fairs is a proponent for “whole-life costing” — looking at the 100-year footprint. His company now works on net-zero retrofits, a goal that corresponds with the U.K.’s 2050 carbon goals. Awards flowed: RICS Matrics Project of the Year in 2018 for an eco-housing reworking of a Victorian orphanage, and commendations from the Institute of Historic Building Conservation.
Fairs’ professional manner is self-effacing — Converse in place of hard hats, rough sketches filling Moleskine notebooks. “This is the surveyor you’d leave your grandmother’s cottage with, ‘Here, sell this,’” colleagues say about him—according to a Greep Tech feature. With over a quarter of a century experience in the field, he is worth an estimated £2–3 million, thanks to client consultancy fees as well as property investments. Yet, success never eclipsed family. The schoolteacher Jeanne Speight and Fairs divorced in the early 2010s, but he’s a dedicated dad to their two adult children, whom he frequently thanks for keeping his “brick-obsessed” life grounded.
The Mould That Grew Magic: Meeting Miranda In the Midst of Lockdown Blues
If Fairs’ career provides a solid base, his affair with Miranda Hart is the delightful skylight flooding it with light and pleasure. It started back in 2020, during the peak of COVID-19 lockdowns, when Hart – then 47 and suffering badly from Lyme disease and creative burnout – hired Fairs to address a plague of mould in her West London flat. Silence had descended, and Hart, star of the BBC sitcom Miranda and Call the Midwife, would lock herself away in solitude, she later learned how alone she had felt through her memoir’s description of a “deep deep aloneness”. Enter Fairs, 56, the “Mould Man,” brandishing dehumidifiers and dry wit.
So what in the beginning was a professional gig — Fairs diagnosing black spot fungus from Victorian-era damp-proofing failures — had led to hours of conversation. Their first “date” was an accident: pizzas held up on a site visit turned into talk in the living room that lasted until midnight. “He looked at me, I mean and really looked — in those spores, that silence,” Hart wrote in her book of him, giving him the moniker “The Boy” for his boyish appeal. Fairs, fresh from his divorce and a circuit of the nightclubs of Bristol, found in Hart a soul mate — someone who laughed at his jokes about “damp squibs” and loved swing jazz as much as he.
They used virtual calls and careful meetups to deepen their connection. Fairs took Hart on Bristol’s harborside walks; she lured him to London comedy nights. In 2021, as Hart’s health rebounded, they worked better together than ever. Fairs’ steadiness — grounded in his surveyor’s precision — juxtaposed nicely against Hart’s ebullience. “He’s my best friend, the smartest person I have ever met,” she gushed on The Graham Norton Show back in October 2024, at long last identifying him after several months of playful hints.
The proposal happened in 2023 at Kew Gardens, beneath a cherry blossom canopy. Hart described the scene on The One Show: Fairs, ever the planner and control freak, knelt down by a bridge on a lake, his voice calm despite some serious nerves. “Miranda,” he spoke, breaking the silence before words evaporated and a ring popped onto the scene. She agreed, collapsing to her knees in joy. Their wedding, July 6, 2024, was a lesson in intimacy — a ceremony celebrated at 4 p.m. at a thousand-year-old church in Hambledon’s Hampshire village that included only family and friends sworn to secrecy. No celebrities, no paparazzi — just vows exchanged dappled with sunlight filtered through ancient stained glass.
The news came through Hart announcing it at the launch of her memoir at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, when Fairs was snapped by shutterbugs leaving with her — his first ever appearance as a “husband.” The disclosure made headlines: The Daily Mail called him the “Bristol Boy Who Stole Miranda’s Heart”; Express.co.uk called it a “pizza-powered love story.” For single women — particularly ones in a faith community — it sounded as hope: Hart, who has been vocal about her Christian faith and struggles with dating over 50 when so many assumed she never would, found partnership at 50, proving timelines flex.
Mixing Worlds: Public Glimpses, Private Passions
Post-wedding Fairs has modestly skirted fame’s edges. Their appearance at a December 2024 outing to Strictly Come Dancing — supporting Hart’s pal Sarah Hadland — was an unusual red-carpet moment, Fairs in a tailored wool suit, Hart resplendent in sequins. He’s accompanied her to book signings, drumming quietly on table tops to soothe her jitters. Yet Fairs is notoriously private; his X account (@RichardFairs) is an understated affair — 37 followers, musings on “rubbish drumming” with his local swing band, Mendip Swing Big Band. A Facebook shout out to his band lets on a little about his rhythm section beginnings, a pastime that’s the perfect counterpoint to long survey days.
Professionally, marriage has not dulled Fairs’ focus. The Building Consultancy grew in 2025, launching a “Heritage Health” app for remote diagnostics — very handy when flash flooding hit the UK. He has addressed RICS conferences on “Love and Legacy: Balancing Personal and Professional Foundations,” a mix of personal anecdotes and technical tips. Hart’s presence looms large: her mental health advocacy gave way to mandatory firm wellness checks for staff, and the surveyor’s rigour is combined with comic lightness.
Challenges persist. Fairs’ ex-wife and children have made their peace with the limelight but family comes first — weekends in Somerset, barbecues with Fairs’ circle. He’s made anonymous donations to Bristol’s homeless shelters, and he has linked his conservation ethos to social good. As Hart explained to Manchester Evening News, their relationship is based on “extraordinary ordinariness.”
A Quiet Strength Through the Ages: Why Fairs Matters Today
Richard Fairs’ story is more than just tabloid fodder. In a splintered 2025 world, one riddled by housing crises and heritage losses, his work is about more than building restoration; it’s about trust in the hand. The Building Consultancy’s 20 percent growth this year highlights demand for his model: expert, ethical, long-lasting. In person, he is a poster child for midlife renewal, showing that love comes not with fanfare but fungal remedies.
Though Hart’s star is on the rise — there are rumors of a Miranda revival — Fairs remains the anchor. “He’s the joist holding my sill,” she cracked to the Daily Mail in January 2025, with tears forming in her eyes. Their future? Maybe a collaborative charitable effort on artsy renovations, or just more pizzas around the fire. No matter the template, Fairs draws with care — demonstrating that the sturdiest lives are constructed one honest layer at a time.
FAQ: Unpacking Richard Fairs’ World
Q: Who is Richard Fairs – and how did he meet Miranda Hart?
A: Richard Fairs is the 60-year-old founder of The Building Consultancy in Bristol, and a chartered building surveyor. He first met Hart in 2020, when he was hired to remove mould from her West London home during lockdown.
Q: Please describe The Building Consultancy.
A: The firm specializes in construction surveys, heritage conservation, structural reports and sustainable restoration of historic properties.
Q: Where and when did Richard Fairs and Miranda Hart marry?
A: They married in secret on July 6, 2024, at a 1,000-year-old church in Hambledon, Hampshire with only close family and friends.
Q: Is Richard Fairs active on Instagram?
A: Yes, infrequently — his X (@RichardFairs) trades drumming hobbies and surveying wisecracks with 37 followers.
Q: What does Richard Fairs do in his spare time when he’s not working?
A: He plays drums in the Mendip Swing Big Band and spends time with his family in Somerset.
Q: How Has Fairs’ Career Changed As A Result Of Marrying Miranda Hart?
A: They did give us some press for a little bit, but he’s built up his company using new tools such as a diagnostics app and has continued to keep an eye on conservation.
