Escape to the country

HerrMetal

Axe_meister said:

We are thinking of moving to Devon is six years time. A house in the country with no neighbors.
I hate living in London. The only good thing has been the rise in house prices since we bought the property 17 years ago.

Axe_meister from Axminster seems appropriate :-)

Grunfeld

p90fool said:

thumpingrug said:

Does 900 count as a town?

In Powys, yes. 

I was there last week, near Llanddewi,  and my heart sank coming back to London.  I feel kind of sad and empty being back here.  Even Bournemouth, which I quite like and visit about once or twice a week isn't where I want to be. 

strtdv

I'd love to move to the country and keep a smallholding.

boogieman

HAL9000 said:

boogieman said:

Strangely enough Mrs B and myself are currently looking round W Sussex for somewhere to move.

I know of a house coming up for sale in Crawley ;-)

Lol. I’ve just realised I’ve got compass dyslexia...I meant East Sussex. Spent today in Battle, which seems almost perfect for us. Not too big or small, has a decent range of shops, good transport links, stuff to do, plus we could get up to London to see the family in about 90 minutes. The downside is the council tax: I thought our current council were bandits but it’s even more extortionate in Battle. Nearly £3 grand a year for the sort of place we’re looking for. Ferk!!  

Dominic

17 years ago I moved from St Johns Wood NW8 to the Dedham Vale ,Suffolk ......nice house, grounds etc .I survived for 18 months thinking the first 6 months was wonderful and grew rapidly disenchanted with the general picture. Small -minded ,bigoted little twerps ,unworldly and stuck somewhere in the mid 1940s "we don't like foreign food "mindset or the few local Public School Hoorays who thought they were in charge but had Fuck-all money but made a lot of noise.
Village shop that still had "half-day closing ",post office that was never open because "Jean is busy looking after the kittens "
and a third-rate chippy that closed at 6.45 (prompt )
 No thank you .I moved back to Hadley Wood on the edge of London (Barnet ) where I originally came from .
Maybe I moved in the wrong direction ( East Anglia ) or didn't have enough fingers to really fit in but somewhere on the outskirts of Bath, Bournemouth or Brighton would have been perfect.

lovestrat74

Dominic said:

....somewhere on the outskirts of Bath, Bournemouth or Brighton would have been perfect.

We were going to move to the outskirts of Bournemouth a few years ago, but glad we didn't now. Went for a trip down there last month and  local traffic was a nightmare around the area.  More houses and cars down there than where I live. Sometimes the grass is not always greener.  Making the right choice of location is key I guess..

Dominic

Yeah, the traffic is going to be bad anywhere that there is life !

57Deluxe

for a while in 90s I was hell bent on moving to Suffolk cos I liked Lovejoy.

HAL9000

Old thread resurrection. Well it’s finally happening although not to Norfolk as originally planned. Due to our kids moving to Hampshire and Berkshire we decided to go west rather than east and have just had an offer accepted for a house in Ansty in Wiltshire (on the A30 between Salisbury and Shaftesbury).

It will be a completely different way of life so we’re both excited and rather nervous at the same time. Living in a town means that things like septic tanks (currently Thames Water pipe our drainage away) and oil-fired ch and AGA (Octopus currently pipe gas into our house) will be somewhat alien.

Anyway, looking forward (with trepidation) to our move.

FarleyUK

HAL9000 said:

Old thread resurrection. Well it’s finally happening although not to Norfolk as originally planned. Due to our kids moving to Hampshire and Berkshire we decided to go west rather than east and have just had an offer accepted for a house in Ansty in Wiltshire (on the A30 between Salisbury and Shaftesbury).

It will be a completely different way of life so we’re both excited and rather nervous at the same time. Living in a town means that things like septic tanks (currently Thames Water pipe our drainage away) and oil-fired ch and AGA (Octopus currently pipe gas into our house) will be somewhat alien.

Anyway, looking forward (with trepidation) to our move.

Congrats, but no need to get Ansty...

lovestrat74

Good luck and keep us updated with how it goes and what it's like in comparison to townlife  

HAL9000

lovestrat74 said:

Good luck and keep us updated with how it goes and what it's like in comparison to townlife  

I’ll try. I’m concerned that the Wilts ISP might be like a steampunk version of the real internet. No fibre broadband in those little villages just south of the A303.

HAL9000

HAL9000 said:

...have just had an offer accepted for a house in Ansty...

...or so I thought. Apparently I’m now in a bidding war. Buggeration!

PeteC

Interesting - I'm about to move out of Leeds to get into the country. I can understand your motivations. 

Alterlifeson

I've always lived in the West Country, albeit not terribly remote. My teenage years were spent in a small village about a 10 minute drive from the county town so my parents did end up being the taxi for a few years. 

Most of my friends now live in London whilst me and the other half have bought a house on the outskirts of town very close to the countryside and some nice picturesque villages are just a short walk away. In some respects I wish I'd decided to move to either Bristol or London but we definitely wouldn't have our own house now. I do miss seeing more of my friends but it's only 1.5 hours on the train to Kings Cross and it feels more like an occasion when I do go and visit. 

All I am really missing out on is more of a social and music scene. I dunno, part of me does want to up sticks whils we are still relatively young...

guitargeek62

I grew up in Cornwall and lived there till I was 23, albeit briefly across the Tamar in Plymouth too for Uni. Since then I've lived in London for the past ten years, but I've never really felt at home here. Sure, the lights and sounds and smells are... different, but I miss cliffs, beaches, hills, pasties and clotted cream, plus prices that don't instantly make me balk at them.

Next year I'll be moving back to the SW and I genuinely can't wait for it to happen. We already have a house in Exmouth that is currently being let, but we're going to give notice to our tenants and then move in there for a bit while we decide exactly where to settle. 

I'm really keen to see what happens in a post-COVID world in terms of property prices, wage distribution, and societal impact, as the past five months have prompted a lot of conservative industries to rethink approaches to office space and ways-of-working. I'm taking those silver linings for all that I can, as it means I can keep my current job which I really enjoy, and the inflated London salary that goes with it, while living in a part of the world that I actually want to be in. It's a win-win scenario all round for me, though I fully appreciate that not everyone will be so lucky.

boogieman

Our place has gone on the market literally today. We’re planning a move to the High Weald area of Kent. My wife grew up in the countryside but it’ll be a first for me as I’ve always lived in, or very close to, a big city. Most of me can’t wait, a small part of me is a bit twitchy about being a long way out of my comfort zone. 

VimFuego

HAL9000 said:

HAL9000 said:

...have just had an offer accepted for a house in Ansty...

...or so I thought. Apparently I’m now in a bidding war. Buggeration!

I've heard several anecdotes that this is happening here, seems a lot of people seem keen to escape the more urban areas. 

Stevepage

Congratulations, glad you found some where.

We moved out of Watford finally but we went further north to Leighton Buzzard (on the outskirts). Much quieter and have a lovely house. Devon is still very much a target for us though, maybe in 4 - 5 years.

FreddieVanHalen

HAL9000 said:

HAL9000 said:

...have just had an offer accepted for a house in Ansty...

...or so I thought. Apparently I’m now in a bidding war. Buggeration!

Shame. Anecdotes are of many Londoners selling up and moving out due to Corona.
I hope you are able to secure a place without too much aggro. Moving is stressful enough as it is without buggeration like bidding wars and gazumping.