Butler-Henderson was born into a racing family. Her grandfather used to race a
Frazer Nash at
Brooklands, her father was in the British
karting team and her brother
Charlie is a racing driver. Butler-Henderson grew up on the family farm, and was educated at the
independent schools
St Francis' College in
Letchworth and
Perse School for Girls in
Cambridge. She is the great-granddaughter of
Eric Butler-Henderson, a director of the Great Central Railway, after whom the preserved
GCR Class 11F locomotive
Butler-Henderson is named. Butler-Henderson started racing karts at the age of 12, being overtaken by
David Coulthard in her first race. She holds a car race licence as well as a power boat racing licence. After supplementing her income as a racing instructor at
Silverstone Circuit, she also undertook a dual career in
journalism where she worked on numerous British motoring magazines including
Auto Express,
What Car? and
Performance Car. She was the assistant launch editor and mechanic in
Max Power magazine, referred to simply as "VBH." Also in 2004, she was a presenter for
Formula Woman on ITV. Butler-Henderson has in later years broadened her media career outside racing and cars to become a general presenter. After co-hosting radio shows on
Virgin Radio, in 2005, she presented a daytime television show for ITV called
Date My Daughter in which a single man 'dates' three mothers after which they decide if he is worthy enough to date their daughter. She has recorded voice overs for radio and television advertisements, including Wrigleys Extra Thin Ice and
Sony Centres. She also provided a voiceover for the
PlayStation 2 game
Gran Turismo 4 Prologue. In January 2006, Butler-Henderson appeared in a TV commercial for the Kent & Medway Safety Camera Partnership in which she stated that the Partnership "don't want your cash, they just want you to slow down". Butler-Henderson was also a narrator for
National Geographic Channel (UK)'s science documentary entitled ''
I Didn't Know That. In 2009, she starred in several Dutch commercials for Toyota. She worked at Absolute Radio doing traffic news on the Christian O'Connell Breakfast Show''. She left the breakfast show on 9 July 2009. Butler-Henderson lent her views in the Golden Garages Award, a search for the United Kingdom's best garage run by Motor Codes. Butler-Henderson was part of a professional panel of six independent judges including the
Telegraphs Honest John and motoring editor of
Which? magazine, Richard Headland. She later presented the prize in person to the winners of the competition, Kinghams of Croydon. In 2016, Butler-Henderson's fourteen-year stint at
Fifth Gear ended after the show was cancelled. In 2018, the programme returned on
Quest with all of the original presenters (incl. Butler-Henderson) returning. Since 2019, Butler-Henderson and
Alex Riley have co-presented
The Car Years; a motoring series shown on
ITV4.
Personal life In 2007 Butler-Henderson married television producer and director Phil Churchward. Churchward worked on several motoring programmes as a producer of
Fifth Gear, series director of
Top Gear and
The Grand Tour. Butler-Henderson owns or has owned a
Mk II VW Golf GTI, a
Honda S2000, a
Ducati Monster 750 and a
Ford Ranger (T6) Raptor. ==References==