Alison Cork

Alison Cork is a British home expert, writer and broadcaster. After graduating from Newnham College, Cambridge, with a degree in Classics, Cork launched herself as an entrepreneur, publishing restaurant guides in university towns throughout the UK.

She then co-founded Carnell Ltd, a mail order publishing company, which was subsequently floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1994, making her one of the youngest ever board directors of a publicly quoted company. Whilst running Carnell plc, Cork wrote her first book, Profit Through The Post (Piatkus), about how to set up and run a mail order business, which was voted Book of the Month by Mensa.

She followed this with The Streetwise Guide to Renovating Your Home (Piatkus), at which point she left Carnell plc to pursue a career as in writing and broadcasting. In 1996 she presented her first TV series, The Christmas Show, for Carlton Westcountry Television. 1997 she wrote and presented her first network TV series, Home In The Country (ITV), a lifestyle series that spanned cookery, creative inspiration and interiors. This was followed by several other series, including Countdown To Christmas (Five), Domestic Magic (Five), Don’t Move, Improve (ITV), 60 Minute Makeover (ITV) and Help I Hate My House (ITV).

Parallel to this, Cork published several more books, including Home In The Country, Special Occasions, and Beautiful Baking. She also started writing weekly shopping columns for The Evening Standard (2000-present) and the Daily Telegraph (2005-present), and founded two lifestyle websites www.homesandbargains.co.uk (2005) and www.problemsolved.co.uk (2007). In 2011 Cork launched her first furniture range with Made.com.

Within, her home interiors company, (www.withinhome.com) now spans columns, supplements, books, websites and homeware products, and is based in Central London.

Known for her creative inspiration and savvy ideas, Cork admits she is entirely self taught and simply passionate about home and all it represents.

Alison has most recently been seen as the home interior experts on Channel 5’s daytime show Cowboy Builders and Bodge Jobs (2015)