The Money Mustache Community
Around the World => UK Discussion => Topic started by: cerat0n1a on June 14, 2021, 12:22:06 PM
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Thought it might be interesting to pick the UK MMM collective brain about where to move to. All suggestions welcome...
We've been thinking about relocating away from our current East Anglian university city location for a couple of years and it seems like now is the time to do it. Some things to do to get the house ready for sale, and a little time before our boomeranging twenty-something children depart, but July/August seems likely for both. We moved here 20+ years ago for work, and it's only really the number of local friends we have that's keeping us. Reasons for moving include wanting to free up some cash (housing here is expensive) and to be somewhere less busy (new housing estates being built at each end of our road - definitely boom time round here) but mainly also to get a nicer home and to be somewhere with more attractive countryside.
There are a bunch of criteria, some of which are contradictory, and the relative importance of them is TBD. We've been doing day trips to check out possible places.
- Proximity to national park(s) or an AONB - hills to run/walk in, forests, dark skies. Not too touristy though and not necessarily actually in the National Park.
- Reasonably close to a mainline train route, decent road connections - friends and family scattered round the country, needs to be mainland UK.
- Within walking distance of GP, supermarket, probably also pub/ restaurants, a bookshop. Not too far from A&E/ hospital, an arts centre/ music venue, theatre & art galleries a plus. Suspect that means a nice small market town. This may conflict somewhat with the wish to have a decent size piece of land.
- Ideally somewhere with a running club and a place with traditional music sessions.
- Not too expensive in terms of location - probably rules out much of Southern England.
At the moment, the Yorkshire Dales, Cumbria, N. York Moors are the top of the list - places such as Kirkby Lonsdale, Richmond or Settle. But Shropshire/ Herefordshire/ Mid Wales might be an option, as might Forest of Bowland, Arndale & Silverside, the Pennines north of Manchester (Clitheroe, Hebden Bridge or Todmorden for example) and maybe Northumberland, Dumfries & Galloway, Argyll, the Peak District?
Anyone have other suggestions for nice places to check out? I could post criteria for the actual house too - but suspect that might turn into a property porn/ nice houses on rightmove thread. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing I suppose.
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I live in Carlisle, which in itself meets most of your criteria. But, there are some lovely little villages in a 15 mile radius.
The lake district, scottish borders, northumbria and pennines are all a stones throw away, house prices are cheap, we're on the M6, have the west coast main trainline oh and there is a small airport. Here is a good value property to whet your appetite (without knowing your requirements!):
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/78749115#/
But I think most of the places that you listed are great. We have a motorhome, and visit many of these locations.
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Having moved from Herefordshire to Northumberland, I can confirm the following:
Both counties are lovely.
The East sees less rainfall than the West. Moving from Sussex to Herefordshire was a bit of a shock.
Rail connections to Northumberland are much better than to Hereford. (eg London - Alnmouth for Alnwick is roughly the same time as London - Hereford, but much further.)
Road connections, in theory Northumberland wins there too, although the scheme to convert more of the A1 to dual carriageway is going to be painful over the next 18+ months, and we get more tourist traffic than sleepy Herefordshire.
Re culture: Hereford was great for access to Birmingham and Cardiff. In theory Northumberland should be good for access to Newcastle and Edinburgh, but circumstances recently mean I haven't really proven that yet.
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Government policy in England at the moment is build, build, build. Anywhere you go is going to have pressure to build new houses. Theoretically permission is harder to get within a National Park or AONB but the pressure is still there. So there are no guarantees against new build housing.
Serious question: why do you want "a decent piece of land"? Land needs to be looked after, and if you've only had smaller plots so far the implications of owning a larger piece of land may not be apparent to you - particularly if you want to spend time on music, art and theatre rather than grounds maintenance. A lot of very effective gardening can be done in a smaller space.
Second serious question: have you considered Scotland or Wales? Just over the border(s) from England might be an interesting option for you.
I think your list of possibilities hits most of the high spots. You might take a sideways glance at the Lincolnshire Wolds AONB and in particular Louth. It's a bit more off the beaten track for transport links but has most else of what you are asking for -
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/106578329#/
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/78814029#/
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I would definitely vote for a market town - or, even better, a village within cycling distance of said town. Make it a medieval market town and it will remind you of where you are leaving, but without so many students!
You could do a lot worse than the villages around Salisbury. Not as cheap as up North, but not so cold either. 1.5 hours to London, 1 hour to Bristol on the train. Good theatre, live music and arts scene. Easy access to the New Forest and the Coast. Lacking in big hills though.
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I live in Carlisle, which in itself meets most of your criteria. But, there are some lovely little villages in a 15 mile radius.
The lake district, scottish borders, northumbria and pennines are all a stones throw away, house prices are cheap, we're on the M6, have the west coast main trainline oh and there is a small airport.
I'm not a huge fan of Carlisle itself, but certainly the Solway Coast would tick all of the boxes, and probably also around Penrith and the Eden valley too. General dampness might be a concern, but that's true of many other places on the list. I really like Cockermouth as a place, but it's relatively expensive, and flooding...
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Government policy in England at the moment is build, build, build. Anywhere you go is going to have pressure to build new houses. Theoretically permission is harder to get within a National Park or AONB but the pressure is still there. So there are no guarantees against new build housing.
True - but I think where we are now is really booming. Several new towns built from scratch, other towns doubling in size, tens of thousands of homes being added to Cambridge itself, new estate in pretty much every village. I'm generally in favour of it - there are lots of jobs, and people should live near jobs. Just a shame that the infrastructure isn't scaling as rapidly. And as we don't need to be here for work any more, I'm happy to move. I don't think other parts of the country are growing at the same rate.
Serious question: why do you want "a decent piece of land"? Land needs to be looked after, and if you've only had smaller plots so far the implications of owning a larger piece of land may not be apparent to you - particularly if you want to spend time on music, art and theatre rather than grounds maintenance. A lot of very effective gardening can be done in a smaller space.
I've had about a third of an acre for the last 20+ years, and am a keen gardener, so well aware of the time requirements. There's definitely thinking to be done here though - my wife likes to look at the garden rather than actually work on it. I said "land" rather than "garden" deliberately - an allotment would partly fill the need, and a patch of meadow or woodland doesn't necessarily have to be right next door. It does of course assume too that I'll be in reasonable physical health for the next couple of decades.
Second serious question: have you considered Scotland or Wales? Just over the border(s) from England might be an interesting option for you.
Yes - I have several family members within a mile of the Welsh border in both Shropshire & Cheshire. Hay on Wye would tick a lot of boxes in terms of bookshops, festivals etc. I suppose. I like the Berwyn Mountains and the area around Llangollen a lot. Llanidloes & Machynlleth both have lots of green/alternative things going on, but perhaps a bit too far from friends and family. I do speak some Welsh, but I'd be slightly concerned about fitting in - clearly a big part of making such a move successful is to quickly make new friends and so on.
Scotland does have some amazingly cheap property - regularly see lovely farmhouses in the Galloway hills or Ayrshire for example at half the price of our current fairly average house. We've tended to stick to the West Highlands or Hebrides for holidays, so there's a lot of Scotland that I don't know very well at all.
You might take a sideways glance at the Lincolnshire Wolds AONB and in particular Louth. It's a bit more off the beaten track for transport links but has most else of what you are asking for -
Excellent suggestion. My brother-in-law has just bought a retirement property near Louth, and we will visit him in a couple of weeks time, and having him nearby would be a definite plus. I'm not at all familiar with the Wolds. Local property prices seem to be amongst the lowest in England, on a quick look. Not sure how well it will tick the 'hills' box - the Wolds don't look that big, and I guess it's mostly into Lincoln for the cultural stuff.
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I would definitely vote for a market town - or, even better, a village within cycling distance of said town. Make it a medieval market town and it will remind you of where you are leaving, but without so many students!
You could do a lot worse than the villages around Salisbury. Not as cheap as up North, but not so cold either. 1.5 hours to London, 1 hour to Bristol on the train. Good theatre, live music and arts scene. Easy access to the New Forest and the Coast. Lacking in big hills though.
My youngest sister lives in Wilton. Agree that Salisbury is lovely, and pretty much ticks all the boxes, apart from big hills - still far nicer countryside than most of Southern England. Probably ruled out on grounds of cost though. Never really found the north/south temperature divide noticeable - it's the west (wet) vs east (dry) and the coast (frost-free) vs inland (colder winters) vs up the top of a hill (cold all year round) thing that makes the biggest difference.
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Rail connections to Northumberland are much better than to Hereford. (eg London - Alnmouth for Alnwick is roughly the same time as London - Hereford, but much further.)
Yes, east coast mainline is a huge plus. One son working in London and doesn't need a car, the other abroad and wouldn't have a car when back in the UK, and I'm keen to make it easy for them to visit. So anywhere from York up to Berwick is an option. Also find the A1 nicer to use than motorways. Herefordshire would be closer for both sets of parents though, and seems like you get more house for you money than Northumberland.
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I've had about a third of an acre for the last 20+ years,
Apologies to millennial readers are due here I think. It was indeed possible back then for a twenty-something engineer, with no financial help from parents, in a household with a single earner, to buy such a property in the South of England.
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It might be worth adding Morpeth to your list: south Northumberland, a nice old town centre. Possibly expensive due to being Newcastle commuter belt, and also has potential flooding issues. Durham, Richmond and Darlington in County Durham also seem very nice towns, although I've only passed through them as a visitor.
Berwick has a lovely town centre, but the housing stock is mostly pretty shabby, I'm sure there are deals to be had though.
In Herefordshire, Hereford itself is nice, but has not great traffic. I really liked Bromyard and Leominster as small towns, but probably they are too small for you.
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It might be worth adding Morpeth to your list: south Northumberland, a nice old town centre. Possibly expensive due to being Newcastle commuter belt, and also has potential flooding issues. Durham, Richmond and Darlington in County Durham also seem very nice towns, although I've only passed through them as a visitor.
Berwick has a lovely town centre, but the housing stock is mostly pretty shabby, I'm sure there are deals to be had though.
In Herefordshire, Hereford itself is nice, but has not great traffic. I really liked Bromyard and Leominster as small towns, but probably they are too small for you.
Bromyard & Leominster are probably closer to the right size than Hereford I would think. Although I heard that the Dr. Who museum has closed down?
A local friend who is similarly empty-nested is moving to Morpeth - I've only ever passed through on the train. Definitely one to consider. Durham is one of the loveliest towns in England, but how will I feel about thousands of privately educated teenagers arriving every Autumn when I'm a grumpy old man? Richmond is probably number one choice at the moment, the main drawbacks being that the British Army's largest garrison is 3 miles away and the railway stations being 15 miles away.
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It’s definitely an interesting question cerat0n1a. I like your criteria. I think the fact you have friends and family scattered all over the UK is a huge advantage. I’d be moving away from both wherever I went and I think that is a completely different proposition. As it is that should make your transition easier, especially having lived somewhere for a long time.
If I was to move, avoiding an area that has any history of flooding would definitely be high on my list of criteria. I also like the idea of being very close to an AONB. I wish I had some alternative suggestions that haven’t already been mentioned.
Property wise I guess you’re wanting to avoid the temptation of buying somewhere a lot larger even though it is likely to cost considerably less than your current place? I guess that may depend on if you see it as your last move or not.
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Property wise I guess you’re wanting to avoid the temptation of buying somewhere a lot larger even though it is likely to cost considerably less than your current place? I guess that may depend on if you see it as your last move or not.
In theory, yes. In practice, the suggestions that my wife is pinging me on rightmove do often seem to be fairly grand :-) Not necessarily our last move, but hopefully should be for 25+ years. My parents have moved into a town in their early seventies, while still in excellent health, in preparation for being less physically able (and while they still feel able to do most of the work on the property themselves).
Flooding would definitely be a concern. I'm not sure how much the effect of global warming more generally should be a factor - water shortages, extreme heat, wind?
I reckon this one might be good for SLTD's commune, although the stairs are not very toddler friendly, and it's always a bit suspicious when there's a house with 11 bedrooms and they don't include pictures of them, presumably still done up in old fashioned country house hotel style.
https://www.onthemarket.com/details/9493391/
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I reckon this one might be good for SLTD's commune, although the stairs are not very toddler friendly, and it's always a bit suspicious when there's a house with 11 bedrooms and they don't include pictures of them, presumably still done up in old fashioned country house hotel style.
https://www.onthemarket.com/details/9493391/
Nice area. Loch Ken, Kippford, Kirkcudbright, Dumfries and the Galloway Forest all nearby. Transport links very poor though.
Also, I'm not sure if there'd be the dreaded midges.
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Please sir, as we've all been very good and patient can we have the house requirements and budget now?
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I live in Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak District and this area has many of the advantages you're looking for. Easy access to Derby and Nottingham, A38/M1, train routes to all over the country as Derby is a railway hub.
You could look at Ashbourne (rural market town), Belper (historic industrial town with really vibrant music/environment/independent shopping scene), Wirksworth etc as lovely bases - substantial properties available both in the towns and in nearby villages. We have previously lived in London, Gloucestershire and Durham and are very happy here! Having the huge Peak national park on the doorstep, while having great travel links to basically the whole country, is a big plus. London is only 1h 45m away by rail. The only long journey we rarely do is to holiday in the south-west as that is a nightmare drive (M42/M5)- our solution is to holiday in the north-east (Northumberland) instead.
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Please sir, as we've all been very good and patient can we have the house requirements and budget now?
You have indeed all been very helpful and added some good suggestions and things to think about. Thank you!
The house requirements are largely the intangible "Does my wife look at the pictures on rightmove and think yes or no?" and will probably be refined further.
- Not a new build
- Not a bungalow
- Not in need of any serious updating - removing avocado bathroom suites ok, substantial renovation not.
- Kitchen large enough to have space for a table for several people to sit round
- Bit of 'character' which I interpret to mean either built quite a while ago, or, if modern, to not be a brick-shaped box
- Space for visitors to stay - bonus points it it's an annexe/granny flat, even more bonus points if visitors who struggle with stairs are catered for
- Quiet - particularly with regards to road noise/ traffic
- Broadband speed
- Not too overlooked
- Space to grow indoor plants - conservatory or a sunny south facing room with plenty of glass
- Outbuildings get bonus points, particularly if one can function as an art studio; otherwise scope to have a studio in the house
- Countryside views
- Bonus points for green features - solar cells/ heat pump etc.
- Not likely to flood
- Garden - kind of place where trees/ orchard, chickens, wild areas, vegetables are ok - not too suburban or formal. Decent soil, microclimate, ideally water/stream/pond.
- Footpaths - need to be able to run or walk from the house without using cars.
We're likely to get around £800K for our current house. Knocking something off for estate agents, solicitors, stamp duty, moving costs, redecoration etc. gives some idea of a possible maximum budget. That figure buys a lot of house in most of the country, and the mustachian thing to do would be to spend considerably less than that - and hopefully gives lower annual running costs in terms of maintenance, heating, council tax and so forth.
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I live in Derbyshire on the edge of the Peak District and this area has many of the advantages you're looking for. Easy access to Derby and Nottingham, A38/M1, train routes to all over the country as Derby is a railway hub.
You could look at Ashbourne (rural market town), Belper (historic industrial town with really vibrant music/environment/independent shopping scene), Wirksworth etc as lovely bases - substantial properties available both in the towns and in nearby villages. We have previously lived in London, Gloucestershire and Durham and are very happy here! Having the huge Peak national park on the doorstep, while having great travel links to basically the whole country, is a big plus. London is only 1h 45m away by rail. The only long journey we rarely do is to holiday in the south-west as that is a nightmare drive (M42/M5)- our solution is to holiday in the north-east (Northumberland) instead.
Not sure I count easy access to Derby or Nottingham as pluses :-) although I take your point about train links and the M1 and certainly it would be much closer to most of our friends and family than North Yorkshire. Ashbourne is lovely, as is Buxton and many other places in the area. If work was still a consideration, I would certainly be looking at Hope/Edale kind of area with a view to an occasional commute into Manchester or Sheffield. I'd mentally grouped the Peak District in with the Lake District as maybe being a bit too busy with tourists - we've been to the Peak district many many times as a family. But perhaps that is too coarse grained a way to think about it? I guess we wouldn't be joining the throngs on summer weekends in Dovedale or on Monsal Head or whatever.
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Have you thought of going on Escape to the Country?
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How about the Shropshire Hills AONB? Really lovely walking and not as crowded as the Lakes or Peak district. Your budget will definitely buy character around there:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/88830433#/media?id=media0&ref=photoCollage
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Have you thought of going on Escape to the Country?
Definitely not :-)
I think, in any case, we would lack the element of jeopardy they like for such shows. What I'm realising is that there are a lot of locations which would suit us and as long as we steer clear of obviously pricey bits of the country, budget isn't likely to be a problem either. Maybe the story would have to be that we keep doing day trips to beautiful bits of the UK and can't just choose one of them.
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Sounds like a great problem to have :-)
Church Stretton is nice, it has (had?) lots of independent shops.
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How about the Shropshire Hills AONB? Really lovely walking and not as crowded as the Lakes or Peak district. Your budget will definitely buy character around there:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/88830433#/media?id=media0&ref=photoCollage
That house looks amazing, although grade 2* sounds like upkeep might be expensive. Shower off the sitting room is a bit unusual.
Shropshire Hills AONB would be my first choice (and both sets of parents have independently said we should move to Shropshire). My wife is not keen on Shropshire though - not sure why - possibly too close to certain relatives ;-) Still under consideration though.
Church Stretton is nice, it has (had?) lots of independent shops.
Yes, the first line in my Google Docs list reads: Bishop's Castle, Clun, Church Stretton & Craven Arms.
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Apart from the railway line, come to Teesdale in County Durham, it’s stunning, stone properties, houses are spread out, many with outbuildings converted or ready to be converted, people are friendly and lots of hills, reservoirs, walking tracks etc
If you don’t get great broadband when you move then try mobile broadband, we have it and it’s great, good enough for Netflix or gaming (or even work). Property is reasonably priced and we don’t get loads of tourists apart from at the biggest tourist spots at Bank Holidays. It’s really spread out and the wildlife is amazing.
We have The Lakes to one side and the gorgeous North East coast to the other so lots to do.
Having lived in a Derbyshire for a long time, it can get crazy busy during school holidays even in the less touristy towns.
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Apart from the railway line, come to Teesdale in County Durham, it’s stunning, stone properties, houses are spread out, many with outbuildings converted or ready to be converted, people are friendly and lots of hills, reservoirs, walking tracks etc
Thanks for making your first post a helpful suggestion to my question!
Don't you have problems with people coming to test their eyesight in Teesdale though ;-) ? Or do you mean further up the dale? I've walked through on the Pennine Way, and been to Barnard Castle, but don't know the towns or villages in the area at all. Which places should we have a look at?
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I have been meaning to post for the last 6 months, just not sure where to start as my route to FI is a bit different that investing in Vanguard (although I have started that now as well)
We moved to Teesdale as I have been passionate about FI for a long time and we bought a stone house with potential for two holiday lets and the property was reasonably priced so no mortgage. This is my main FI route.
I would look around Cotherstone or Romaldkirk to start, BC does have a lot of posters regarding eyetests but it is a nice place but a bit built up for me. All of Teesdale is lovely really, some places more remote than others. Around Frosterly is also nice too. Property has jumped up in value here in the last year and is selling fast, possibly our new claim to fame or just everyone wanting out of the rat race.
Another option could be the Staffordshire Moorlands, it’s cheaper than Derbyshire and less touristy but rugged and beautiful.
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How have I only just discovered this thread?! You know fantasy house moves are one of my favourite hobbies.
Two places that have consistently been at the top of our list have already been mentioned: Lincolnshire Wolds and near Durham. For your requirements, I would be thinking of somewhere just outside Durham so you can walk to the day to day stuff and then travel easily into Durham for culture and picking up prodigal sons from the train station. Everywhere I've looked at in Lincolnshire (although admittedly way below your price range) hasn't had very good transport connections.
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Also, if you're lucky, we'll follow you up one day ;)
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I would look around Cotherstone or Romaldkirk to start, BC does have a lot of posters regarding eyetests but it is a nice place but a bit built up for me. All of Teesdale is lovely really, some places more remote than others. Around Frosterly is also nice too. Property has jumped up in value here in the last year and is selling fast, possibly our new claim to fame or just everyone wanting out of the rat race.
Seems like the property market is pretty hot in lots of places - just hope that is still the case when we're ready to sell. Teesdale is too far for a day trip, so I'll have to have a think about it. Suspect the distance from rail/motorway network might be too big of a factor.
Another option could be the Staffordshire Moorlands, it’s cheaper than Derbyshire and less touristy but rugged and beautiful.
Yes, lovely countryside, we've been to the Roaches a couple of times in recent years and Leek is nice enough without being anything special, but no train station particularly close by.
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Everywhere I've looked at in Lincolnshire (although admittedly way below your price range) hasn't had very good transport connections.
Checking out the Wolds this weekend. It's a surprisingly long drive considering it's an adjacent county, and trains aren't too great either.
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Checking out the Wolds this weekend. It's a surprisingly long drive considering it's an adjacent county, and trains aren't too great either.
After more than two hours of driving through the flatlands, I can confirm that the Wolds have some pretty attractive countryside, with some impressive views from the low hills. Louth and Alford seemed to be pretty pleasant places. Property is very cheap. Overall, though, probably not the place for us.
Was impressed with brother-in-law's place though - fairly big house with 1.5 acres, bought for £350k, a few months ago. Both house and garden need a fair bit of work. It was clearly a very nice garden once, with some fun little features and interesting plants, but its elderly owner was not able to look after it, and most of the land is now completely overgrown with elder trees, brambles, cow parsley and other weeds. Three ponds and an island that was maybe 5x5 metres in the middle of one of them. Definitely reinforced my wish to have something similar.
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Are you not considering a move abroad at all?
I've always loved the idea of spending a few years somewhere else.
I'd also definitely recommend renting somewhere first. Make sure you're happy with an area before you buy. You could rent somewhere for about £2-2.5k per month with the proceeds from your house.
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A pond with an ISLAND?! Yes please!
By the way, Zoopla has a really handy feature in map mode where you can get it to show you things like "healthcare" and "food shops" in your defined area. There's a few places northwest of Durham, between Durham and the North Pennines AONB that have both of the above - most notably Consett, near that important national landmark the Beamish Open Air Museum.
I read an interesting book about the history of the English village a few years ago, and at the end the author talked about the future. I have particularly remembered his theory that the existence of a primary school is one of the most important barometers of the "life" of a village. Are young adults staying or moving there to bring up their families, or are they fleeing to urban centres? If the former, then the village is "sustainable" and likely to be able to support other amenities like a GP.
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Are you not considering a move abroad at all?
No. We both spent time abroad in our twenties and have done a lot of slow/overland travel (70+ countries between us).
I've been offered jobs abroad a few times in the past (and could probably find one pretty quickly even now). Plan is to move somewhere and stay there until old age forces a move.
I'd also definitely recommend renting somewhere first. Make sure you're happy with an area before you buy. You could rent somewhere for about £2-2.5k per month with the proceeds from your house.
I think we're very likely to do this once we have a decision about where. Suspect we could pay less than £1k per month tbh.
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A pond with an ISLAND?! Yes please!
The island was covered with several Gunnera Manicata plants, and we hatched a plan to build a bridge across to it. He has quite a few pre-school aged grandchildren and so his plans are for dens, fairy doors on trees, places to camp and have fires and so on rather than what plants to grow.
By the way, Zoopla has a really handy feature in map mode where you can get it to show you things like "healthcare" and "food shops" in your defined area. There's a few places northwest of Durham, between Durham and the North Pennines AONB that have both of the above - most notably Consett, near that important national landmark the Beamish Open Air Museum.
I'll have a play with Zoopla, thanks.
There is a very good reason why Consett has very cheap housing! Not the kind of place that many people voluntarily move to...
I read an interesting book about the history of the English village a few years ago, and at the end the author talked about the future. I have particularly remembered his theory that the existence of a primary school is one of the most important barometers of the "life" of a village. Are young adults staying or moving there to bring up their families, or are they fleeing to urban centres? If the former, then the village is "sustainable" and likely to be able to support other amenities like a GP.
There are two villages either side of ours, both of which have a primary school and a pub, but no shop or GP. There are other villages nearby that have shops and restaurants but no school. All of the villages here are growing. Every single one has added a new housing estate of 50+ homes in the past year, plus infill developments, and I would say mainly young couples or families moving into those new estates (few locals though - most people round here aren't from round here...) I would guess it's the availability of jobs locally that means you have young adults.
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There is a very good reason why Consett has very cheap housing! Not the kind of place that many people voluntarily move to...
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Sadly true, I grew up in that part of the world - avoid. Up into the Durham dales and Teesdale are lovely, but the a*se end of nowhere. When I was a lad, teenagers from Frosterly & Wolsingham used to come down the dale to my own crappy little town for their big night out as it was the bright lights / big city to them. (it wasn't!)
I'm doing a similar bale out of Cambridge, but we already know we are going to North Norfolk.
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Malvern/Ledbury, somewhere west of the Malverns?
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A pond with an ISLAND?! Yes please!
By the way, Zoopla has a really handy feature in map mode where you can get it to show you things like "healthcare" and "food shops" in your defined area. There's a few places northwest of Durham, between Durham and the North Pennines AONB that have both of the above - most notably Consett, near that important national landmark the Beamish Open Air Museum.
I read an interesting book about the history of the English village a few years ago, and at the end the author talked about the future. I have particularly remembered his theory that the existence of a primary school is one of the most important barometers of the "life" of a village. Are young adults staying or moving there to bring up their families, or are they fleeing to urban centres? If the former, then the village is "sustainable" and likely to be able to support other amenities like a GP.
I guess covid has made villages more popular? not sure how long that would last.
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A pond with an ISLAND?! Yes please!
By the way, Zoopla has a really handy feature in map mode where you can get it to show you things like "healthcare" and "food shops" in your defined area. There's a few places northwest of Durham, between Durham and the North Pennines AONB that have both of the above - most notably Consett, near that important national landmark the Beamish Open Air Museum.
I read an interesting book about the history of the English village a few years ago, and at the end the author talked about the future. I have particularly remembered his theory that the existence of a primary school is one of the most important barometers of the "life" of a village. Are young adults staying or moving there to bring up their families, or are they fleeing to urban centres? If the former, then the village is "sustainable" and likely to be able to support other amenities like a GP.
I guess covid has made villages more popular? not sure how long that would last.
I think the village/small town thing will be here to stay for a lot of people, firstly because it's quite difficult to be properly remote from big town/city facilities in the UK and secondly because a surprisingly small proportion of the population actually makes use of the sort of facilities (arts, entertainment, professional sports) that are only available in big towns/cities even when they do live there.
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The number of people who live in London "for the culture" who make an annual trip to a South Kensington museum and an annual trip the a West End show never ceases to astonish me. And who act as if there are no other large, good quality museums or theatre companies or receiving houses anywhere in the entire country. Or trains to London from anywhere in the entire country. So they are paying a premium on everything to *feel* cultured.
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I was reading your list and the first place I thought of was Settle. But then I saw you already mentioned it. But it meets all your criteria I think. Or Skipton, Thirsk etc. I'm just an anglophile tourist, I've spent a lot of time in your country but I've never lived there. But we don't drive so if we've been somewhere, it's easy to get there by train.
Not sure if it's still possible after Brexit but we always planned to move to Yorkshire when we are 40 and run a pub or a B&B there (we both have actual hospitality experience so that's not a completely insane dream).
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The number of people who live in London "for the culture" who make an annual trip to a South Kensington museum and an annual trip the a West End show never ceases to astonish me. And who act as if there are no other large, good quality museums or theatre companies or receiving houses anywhere in the entire country. Or trains to London from anywhere in the entire country. So they are paying a premium on everything to *feel* cultured.
You mean you actually have to go to these places rather than just absorb culture by osmosis? That is going to be a shock to a lot of people.
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I was reading your list and the first place I thought of was Settle. But then I saw you already mentioned it. But it meets all your criteria I think. Or Skipton, Thirsk etc. I'm just an anglophile tourist, I've spent a lot of time in your country but I've never lived there. But we don't drive so if we've been somewhere, it's easy to get there by train.
Not sure if it's still possible after Brexit but we always planned to move to Yorkshire when we are 40 and run a pub or a B&B there (we both have actual hospitality experience so that's not a completely insane dream).
Yes, I like Settle (and Ribblesdale) - lovely small town with amazing views and countryside everywhere you look, the railway line of course, nice pubs and restaurants, its independent hydro scheme, quite a few arty things in town and the Victorian music hall. Obviously it's the walking (or cycling, climbing) that is the big attraction. Kirkby Lonsdale & Sedburgh also lovely places up that way. Thirsk and Skipton have both been visited and ruled out. Thirsk mainly on the grounds that other places very close by were nicer.
It will be interesting to see what happens with the hospitality industry and Brexit. Obviously Covid is still affecting pubs, cafes and restaurants quite severely, but locally many places are unable to open, or opening with limited hours due to being unable to replace EU staff.
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You mean you actually have to go to these places rather than just absorb culture by osmosis? That is going to be a shock to a lot of people.
Could make the case that the existence (or not) of cultural facilities in a town is an indicator that there'll be some like minded people living there (or not). If we were to move to say Totnes, I'd know something about the kind of place it is without ever taking didgeridoo lessons or lentil weaving classes myself.
It is a good point that Former Player makes though. Possibly not entirely representative due to stopping work and the pandemic, but I've been to the British Museum more times in recent years than the (generally fantastic) local museums, last two visits to the theatre were in Oxford & Stratford, last visit to an art gallery was in Manchester. I'm going to Wembley this month for a sporting event. Realistically, music, comedy gigs etc. likely happens at most once or twice a month and already involves a trip in the car.
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Crewe or the surrounds fit the bill. Some fairly nice villages to the west.
Close to M6.
An hour from Bham and Manchester centres.
MAN airport 40 min.
West coast main line station.
HS2 due 2030, make that 2040... LOL
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Crewe or the surrounds fit the bill. Some fairly nice villages to the west.
Close to M6.
An hour from Bham and Manchester centres.
MAN airport 40 min.
West coast main line station.
HS2 due 2030, make that 2040... LOL
Bit lacking in the hills/scenery department though, and I don't think the town itself is anything special. Certainly good for train connections and the M6, as you say. Whitchurch is pretty nice and surprisingly cheap. Don't really know Nantwich. Several members of close family in Cheshire, Chester is one of the nicest towns in England. Knutsford is pretty attractive as are places like Lymm or Bollington, but it is all Manchester commuter belt with prices to match. I think if I was going to move to Cheshire, a village round Delamere forest might be my preference.
Spent last week in North Yorkshire, and I think for my wife it's now a straight choice between Richmond/Bedale/Leyburn area (Swaledale or Wensleydale) or the North York Moors, the string of small towns from Helmsley to Kirkbymoorside, or (less likely) over towards Whitby/Robin Hoods Bay. Need to arrange another trip to visit the northern/western side of the dales though. We're still getting things ready to sell up here - hoping to have the house on the market by late August/early September. We potentially could buy without selling here, or alternatively sell and move into rented for a while, but I suppose the traditional buy and sell on the same day is probably cheapest.
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Spent last week in North Yorkshire, and I think for my wife it's now a straight choice between Richmond/Bedale/Leyburn area (Swaledale or Wensleydale) or the North York Moors, the string of small towns from Helmsley to Kirkbymoorside, or (less likely) over towards Whitby/Robin Hoods Bay. Need to arrange another trip to visit the northern/western side of the dales though. We're still getting things ready to sell up here - hoping to have the house on the market by late August/early September. We potentially could buy without selling here, or alternatively sell and move into rented for a while, but I suppose the traditional buy and sell on the same day is probably cheapest.
I lived in Kilburn, between Thirsk and Helmsley, a few years back. I loved the village life and the community feel, but be aware that it can get a bit isolative in winter. We had to buy a 4 wheel drive to get out of the village in winter snow, there was no mains gas, internet was really slow, and in the summer the tourists are everywhere and don't know how to drive on tiny lanes. :) Public transport was non-existent. I don't think it would suit me and the way I live now, but coming home from work back then felt like I was going on holiday to come to such a beautiful place.
Happy to help if you want any (former) insider knowledge.
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I lived in Kilburn, between Thirsk and Helmsley, a few years back. I loved the village life and the community feel, but be aware that it can get a bit isolative in winter. We had to buy a 4 wheel drive to get out of the village in winter snow, there was no mains gas, internet was really slow, and in the summer the tourists are everywhere and don't know how to drive on tiny lanes. :) Public transport was non-existent. I don't think it would suit me and the way I live now, but coming home from work back then felt like I was going on holiday to come to such a beautiful place.
I think my wife would view being snowed in as a benefit rather than a problem... Internet speed is something I'm aware of as my parents had to have satellite internet after BT removed dial-up as an option. Perhaps less of an issue than in the past though.
We've had an offer on our house today - in spite of not having spoken to an estate agent yet. It's someone who needs to exchange and complete in the next few weeks and whose purchase has fallen through. Probably need to get a valuation before deciding how to proceed. We've agreed to rent a property up north in any case.
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Ooh, well that just got exciting!
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Congratulations that’s exciting.
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I lived in Kilburn, between Thirsk and Helmsley, a few years back. I loved the village life and the community feel, but be aware that it can get a bit isolative in winter. We had to buy a 4 wheel drive to get out of the village in winter snow, there was no mains gas, internet was really slow, and in the summer the tourists are everywhere and don't know how to drive on tiny lanes. :) Public transport was non-existent. I don't think it would suit me and the way I live now, but coming home from work back then felt like I was going on holiday to come to such a beautiful place.
I think my wife would view being snowed in as a benefit rather than a problem... Internet speed is something I'm aware of as my parents had to have satellite internet after BT removed dial-up as an option. Perhaps less of an issue than in the past though.
We've had an offer on our house today - in spite of not having spoken to an estate agent yet. It's someone who needs to exchange and complete in the next few weeks and whose purchase has fallen through. Probably need to get a valuation before deciding how to proceed. We've agreed to rent a property up north in any case.
Definitely get a valuation. Prices have shot up sharply in hot areas like Cambridge and your idea of what your property is worth may be lagging a bit, I know mine was.
Renting a property is a great idea. Having sold up and being local in the area where you are looking to buy plus having cash for the purchase is a big bonus. We had an offer accepted on our next house last week and being local, a cash buyer and not in a hurry to move beat higher offers in what turned out to be a feeding frenzy of retirees escaping to the country. (I'm not counting on the purchase though, the sellers need to find somewhere to buy still and a million things could go wrong before completion)
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Wow, that's great. Congratulations.
What region have you picked up North? You'll most likely be a lot closer to Manchester which can only be a good thing for you! :D
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Good luck "oup north".
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The estate agent indicated a price range, and the offer is exactly in the middle of that range - and of course we potentially save the estate agents fees too. I guess there's still a way to go in terms of surveys and such like, so congratulations may be a little premature. The estate agent was pretty bullish about how quickly houses are selling. I guess it's his job to fill people with confidence about a quick sale/good price etc. but he did turn up with a bunch of properties in the area that they've sold recently with asking price, actual sales price, gap between coming onto the market and being marked on rightmove as sold and so on.
What region have you picked up North? You'll most likely be a lot closer to Manchester which can only be a good thing for you! :D
I think we're pretty much settled on North Yorkshire - the Dales or North Yorks Moors.
We have friends and family in Manchester, and I do occasionally visit for sporting purposes too. It's a beautiful city, but I think Liverpool & Newcastle are even nicer :-) Yorkshire's big cities have their attractions too, but not quite in the same league.
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I think we're pretty much settled on North Yorkshire - the Dales or North Yorks Moors.
Sounds like you will have competition! (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58502618)
Are you sure you aren't an Influencer? The People are following you.
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Interesting. I suspect there's a possibility of a few high valued transactions skewing statistics like that a bit. Certainly I've seen some houses in Richmond going very quickly, but others have not sold for months or have been sold and then the transaction has fallen through and they're back on the market. There are houses in the area on sale for below £200K which also sell quickly, and which don't really look like the kind of places people would want as holiday homes, so I think local first-time buyers are still a fairly big part of the market.
We ended up talking to two estate agents, the second of whom seemed much better than the other (and also valued the house £50K higher than the other, which I assume was purely to win the business). They had the house up on rightmove on a Tuesday afternoon, we had a number of viewings lined up for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but the lady who looked round first made an offer above the asking price, on the condition that we cancel the other viewings, and we accepted, so it was sold within 12 hours of going on the market. So it seems like the market here is pretty hot too. Seems like the buyer is in a hurry, as her own sale is at the point where they're ready to exchange contracts. So, fingers crossed it all goes smoothly from here.
We need to open a joint bank account to hold the cash proceeds for however long the gap between buying and selling turns out to be. Splitting it across multiple accounts for FSCS protection is going to be too painful I think, so National Savings might be an obvious choice, but I'm not sure if they're set up for big electronic payments and extra security.
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Congratulations on the quick sale.
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Interesting. I suspect there's a possibility of a few high valued transactions skewing statistics like that a bit. Certainly I've seen some houses in Richmond going very quickly, but others have not sold for months or have been sold and then the transaction has fallen through and they're back on the market. There are houses in the area on sale for below £200K which also sell quickly, and which don't really look like the kind of places people would want as holiday homes, so I think local first-time buyers are still a fairly big part of the market.
We ended up talking to two estate agents, the second of whom seemed much better than the other (and also valued the house £50K higher than the other, which I assume was purely to win the business). They had the house up on rightmove on a Tuesday afternoon, we had a number of viewings lined up for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but the lady who looked round first made an offer above the asking price, on the condition that we cancel the other viewings, and we accepted, so it was sold within 12 hours of going on the market. So it seems like the market here is pretty hot too. Seems like the buyer is in a hurry, as her own sale is at the point where they're ready to exchange contracts. So, fingers crossed it all goes smoothly from here.
We need to open a joint bank account to hold the cash proceeds for however long the gap between buying and selling turns out to be. Splitting it across multiple accounts for FSCS protection is going to be too painful I think, so National Savings might be an obvious choice, but I'm not sure if they're set up for big electronic payments and extra security.
Congrats on the fast sale.
The proceeds from my own sale are just sitting in my personal current account at the moment. This did require DW to sign a form saying she was OK with it, but I didn't want it in our joint account (poor service - I don't trust them an inch) or open a new joint account (descent into 1970s admin with in-person simultaneous visit required to one of the few remaining physical branches).
I'm either going to have to either pay for a CHAPS transfer to my NS&I account, or transfer it in lots of £25k tranches (HSBC have a relatively large daily limit). I'll probably do the latter, there is a reminder in my diary with enough notice before the end of the FSCS high balance protection period.
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I'm either going to have to either pay for a CHAPS transfer to my NS&I account, or transfer it in lots of £25k tranches (HSBC have a relatively large daily limit). I'll probably do the latter, there is a reminder in my diary with enough notice before the end of the FSCS high balance protection period.
I'm wondering whether there's a NS&I Account that can actually receive a large payment from the solicitor - presumably they would normally use CHAPS to make such a payment, but I'm not clear that NS&I handle CHAPS in and out in a timely way. In our case, the temporary large balance should be spent within the six month timeframe the FSCS allows you for house proceeds, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it.
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I'm either going to have to either pay for a CHAPS transfer to my NS&I account, or transfer it in lots of £25k tranches (HSBC have a relatively large daily limit). I'll probably do the latter, there is a reminder in my diary with enough notice before the end of the FSCS high balance protection period.
I'm wondering whether there's a NS&I Account that can actually receive a large payment from the solicitor - presumably they would normally use CHAPS to make such a payment, but I'm not clear that NS&I handle CHAPS in and out in a timely way. In our case, the temporary large balance should be spent within the six month timeframe the FSCS allows you for house proceeds, so maybe I shouldn't worry about it.
I think transfers have to come from (and go to) your nominated account for ns&i, so the solicitor couldn’t make the deposit. If you are doing it all within the 6 month timeframe it’s not really a problem anyway and you’ll save one chaps charge not shipping it out of the current account.
I’m not completely comfortable having the massive balance sat in my current account though as there is a little more risk due to having a debit card for that account. I don’t use that card on-line though, only my credit cards.
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Woohoo, congratulations! Might be worth just checking with your solicitor, both re 'can we use NS&I?' and 'which banks have you found easiest to deal with for large sums?'. They might not be prepared to comment, but might have a suggestion that you wouldn't have thought of.
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Yes, that's a good thought.
We haven't had a joint bank account since paying off the mortgage ~20 years ago, and apart from the 70s-style admin requirements imposed by the know-your-customer regulations, we're also going to have to do some standing order in and out of the new account in order to meet the "£1000 coming into the account every month" type rules. I wonder whether it's possible to limit an account so that there are no associated cards or online features and it can only do CHAPS payments to or from our solicitor.
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I'm very late to this (and congratulations on the sale!) but have you looked at Malton? Have only been a couple of times but always seems lovely.
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I'm very late to this (and congratulations on the sale!) but have you looked at Malton? Have only been a couple of times but always seems lovely.
Yes, it is very nice, although surprisingly few houses have come up there for sale recently, and I think we prefer the villages further north that are actually in the Howardian Hills or on the edge of the North York Moors NP.
Sale seems to still be progressing OK - building survey didn't turn up much. The surveyor seemed to spend quite a lot of time working out whether various remodelling options were feasible (adding a downstairs ensuite, adding an extra shower room, fitting a large double door at the far end of the garage).
Moving temporarily from a large house with a large garden and multiple outbuildings to a much smaller city terrace is requiring a large amount of forced decluttering. I think we're still going to end up with a bunch of stuff in storage until we buy though.
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We had a big declutter before moving to Norfolk, but were always planning for quite a bit in storage. One thing I found when looking for a removal company is that the removal cost was quite similar between companies, but the storage cost varied a lot so it is very worthwhile shopping around.
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We had a big declutter before moving to Norfolk, but were always planning for quite a bit in storage. One thing I found when looking for a removal company is that the removal cost was quite similar between companies, but the storage cost varied a lot so it is very worthwhile shopping around.
Yes, unsurprisingly, it seems to be a good bit cheaper in Yorkshire than in Cambs. Cards & leaflets from removals companies (and other estate agents) have been arriving daily since the house went on rightmove.
How is your househunting in Norfolk going?
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We had a big declutter before moving to Norfolk, but were always planning for quite a bit in storage. One thing I found when looking for a removal company is that the removal cost was quite similar between companies, but the storage cost varied a lot so it is very worthwhile shopping around.
Yes, unsurprisingly, it seems to be a good bit cheaper in Yorkshire than in Cambs. Cards & leaflets from removals companies (and other estate agents) have been arriving daily since the house went on rightmove.
How is your househunting in Norfolk going?
It worked out almost 40% cheaper using Norfolk storage for us.
We have had an offer accepted on a house, but the seller still needs to find somewhere and they are moving well out of the area, so it may take some time. We’ve seen nothing better on Rightmove since, so no problem, but if it goes another couple of months and we spot something good with vacant possession or an established chain it’s going to be a tricky decision whether to bail out or continue waiting.
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Sorry to be hijacking the thread
I have also had an offer accepted in early July but the seller hasn't found a place yet. And no update from the EA.....
Stuck . :( :( :( :( :(
It worked out almost 40% cheaper using Norfolk storage for us.
We have had an offer accepted on a house, but the seller still needs to find somewhere and they are moving well out of the area, so it may take some time. We’ve seen nothing better on Rightmove since, so no problem, but if it goes another couple of months and we spot something good with vacant possession or an established chain it’s going to be a tricky decision whether to bail out or continue waiting.
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I thought it best to revive this topic rather than repeating a similar question, as there's a lot of useful info here already -- if you don't mind @cerat0n1a? Also apologies if I missed an update elsewhere, but I'd be interested to find out if you did end up moving and if so, how that went?
We're basically in a very similar situation and a lot of this threads recommendations are going to be useful as we think about moving in the UK too. I'm just going to add a few of our details.
we're living in the SE. Hubby retired at 50 and is now 52. I'm 47 and working at local university but planned to finish in 2 years or go (more) part time (when I'll also complete all my NI years). I love my job and can do PT but have had some health issues so I feel ready to go I think.
Hubby needs to buy 1 NI year at some point. no kids or big reasons to stay once I finish and we're also feeling fed up with mass scale house building around us (directly and in the wider local area), are interested in a new start and the idea of releasing equity to cushion our early retirement at the same time. We want a 1 or 2 bed low maintenance house which it seems feasible to get for £150-180k less than our current location. Okish access to London would maybe be a plus but not too important.
Our house is paid off and worth £270ish. We live happily on about £10k a year and have worked out the figures that with over £120 k invested in two years plus some NHS pension for hubby (when we decide to take it) and Uni pension for me at 57 we can do this, even living here (planning on state pension for 67+).
We like the idea of living near an area with an attraction ie AONB or coast (or both) but taking into account future flooding risk. Live pretty rurally now but would like better walking access to some amenities and to future proof as we get older so maybe a market town or similar. We are both on the liberal-ish green side of things so slightly alternative would be good for like minded people but not essential.
We're thinking anywhere in the UK possibly though maybe not as far as Scotland. We have a cat with health needs so day visits are probably out of the question so we'll likely sell and rent in a new area before buying again.
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@MarcherLady is on the coast but pretty far north (maybe too far for you).
Yorkshire is lovely but expensive I believe.
I've always had a soft spot for Lancaster - well connected to London, close to the Lake District, nice town in itself - there must be nice villages around there.
@PhilB may be able to advise on some areas further West!
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The Isle of Wight could get you about everything except the access to London and ferries add to costs if you go to the mainland often. Parts of Lincolnshire (not the flat bits) could get you the access to London but not the hippy vibe. Looking at market towns is a good idea.
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Thanks for the reply @LightTripper .. I see MarcherLady is in Northumberland, that looks like a lovely part of the UK. maybe ok distance wide.. we're trying to keep an open mind and I think the east coast trains are pretty quick so in some ways that may be fine.
Yes, I keep hearing great things about Lancaster! That's high on my 'to investigate' list. I noticed Yorkshire does seem quite expensive in parts too. Looking up places to the west as well, makes you realise there's some great places in the UK.
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Thanks @former player .. I hadn't really thought of the isle of wight but if we only came back irregularly, ferries etc wouldn't be a big problem.. good idea. Yeh, Lincolnshire looks great too and market towns do seen to offer what we're looking for as well, not too big, not too small. Hippy vibe isn't massively important, just maybe not too traditional.. probably a low key kinda feel (rather than Brighton kind of place) for us these days, which I love and lived in when younger.
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I’d suggest North Norfolk, inland a bit where it gets cheaper, but I think it’s still a bit too expensive here unless you are up for a big renovation project and get lucky buying.
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Hi @jade. Northumberland is lovely, I highly recommend it to anyone. I've found people to be really friendly to incomers and we are very happy here.
Hexham always gets a really good review as a nice place to live, although it's enough inland that it gets colder and hotter than the coast, but I think is cheaper too.
If you wanted to stay south of Newcastle I like Durham and Darlington. I imagine Durham is more expensive, and also always seems to have a lot of traffic. We haven't explored Yorkshire all that much, although York itself is really nice, and Leeds has a lot going for it as a city. And of course Hebden Bridge is the Brighton of the North!
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Your budget of £90k to £120k (if I read your post correctly) wouldn't get you a house in my neck of the woods, I'm afraid. AONBs, the coast or even nice market towns all tend to get reflected in higher property prices. If you are planning to live on £10k pa then I'm assuming you will be car free, which would rule out being miles from anywhere, so I think you'll need to get creative to get what you want on that budget. It is doable though, eg this house in Betws-y-Coed
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131442344#/?channel=RES_BUY
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I’d suggest North Norfolk, inland a bit where it gets cheaper, but I think it’s still a bit too expensive here unless you are up for a big renovation project and get lucky buying.
Thanks @SpreadsheetMan (love your name!). We kinda want more of a change of location as it's not too far from us currently but not ruling anything out yet (apart from renovations lol!) so your inland suggestion is something that may be useful.
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Hi @jade. Northumberland is lovely, I highly recommend it to anyone. I've found people to be really friendly to incomers and we are very happy here.
Hexham always gets a really good review as a nice place to live, although it's enough inland that it gets colder and hotter than the coast, but I think is cheaper too.
If you wanted to stay south of Newcastle I like Durham and Darlington. I imagine Durham is more expensive, and also always seems to have a lot of traffic. We haven't explored Yorkshire all that much, although York itself is really nice, and Leeds has a lot going for it as a city. And of course Hebden Bridge is the Brighton of the North!
That's great to know, @MarcherLady , thanks! Yes, a friendly welcome to newcomers is one of the things we're thinking of as it's not always the case, is it? I've not heard of Hexham.. I'll check it out and your other suggestions.. I like York. Yes, I've heard good things about Hebden B though I think the prices are a bit higher than it's surroundings.
Look forward to reading more of your journal too.
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Your budget of £90k to £120k (if I read your post correctly) wouldn't get you a house in my neck of the woods, I'm afraid. AONBs, the coast or even nice market towns all tend to get reflected in higher property prices. If you are planning to live on £10k pa then I'm assuming you will be car free, which would rule out being miles from anywhere, so I think you'll need to get creative to get what you want on that budget. It is doable though, eg this house in Betws-y-Coed
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131442344#/?channel=RES_BUY
ooh, I like this game.
Here's something rather nice on the IOW, although it may not meet your "no flooding" criterion
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127419590#/?channel=RES_BUY
Redruth in Cornwall has some lovely buildings and an arty vibe, and is overcoming its depressed mining heritage. You might just get something in your budget, although beware mining subsidence and neighbourhood issues-
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128619809#/?channel=RES_BUY
More opportunities in Lincolnshire
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132172421#/?channel=RES_BUY
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129490928#/?channel=RES_BUY
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/132080648#/?channel=RES_BUY
A flat or retirement property opens up a lot more locations than a house, of course.
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£120k in Hexham is only going to get you retirement properties and/or flats.
But Darlington is a different matter:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/126342023#/?channel=RES_BUY
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131876705#/?channel=RES_BUY
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131472395#/?channel=RES_BUY
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/125249702#/?channel=RES_BUY
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I have a friend in Hexham - I've only visited once (because she comes south regularly to visit family and it is faaarrr) but it's a very beautiful bit of country, near Hadrian's Wall and not too far from Newcastle. The only issue is if you did want to come all the way to London it will add up to quite a hefty journey. (Plus it seems up thread your budget may not stretch far enough there - and if you're not driving then villages may not work out). Anyway, if you end up concluding that Hexham may be on the interest list I can find out the answers to any practical/local questions you have!
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Hi all,
I've just finished work so can get back to this! Thanks so much for all your input.
Surprisingly for a finance forum, I got my maths wrong! 🤦♀️ Oops! sorry about that. I think we're fairly flexible but would like to top up our pension a bit. In theory taking fees into account, we could go up to £260k but as it's just us (so 1 or 2 bed is fine) and we're looking at cheaper areas hope to release at least £100k.
@PhilB thanks for the suggestion. We do have a car but manage to absorb the prices in but as you said, interesting to see what you can get when you get creative.
Thanks @former player .. lots of pretty good property at that price! Lincolnshire particularly seems to be good value. We've been debating the house Vs flat thing for a while but I think house wins for now.
@LightTripper I hadn't heard of Hexham.. I'm going to read the guardian, move to.. link shortly and will let you know in time if I need to pick your brain further on it, thank you! UPDATE I've read it and Hexham sounds great. Going on the list. Thanks again.
@MarcherLady .. ooh thanks re Darlington links too. I've heard great things about it.
I was at uni in Manchester (a while ago ahem) but have mainly lived in the south otherwise so great to get this inside knowledge.
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Another thing to bear in mind, from a friend who spent many years in the Lake District and then moved to York - do take account of rainfall. She LOVES York, not only because it is a very nice manageable sized city (she isn't generally a city person at all) but also it rains so much less on the East of the country than the West. This is probably quite localised so worth just checking figures for areas you are looking at - particularly if you like the idea of being outdoors a lot post-retirement!
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I'm even more impressed at your spending level now I know you're running a car on that budget :)
The extra £40 or £50k should make a big difference in what you can afford - although £120k does seem to go a very long way in Darlington!
The annoying thing is that had transferring out of a DB pension not become virtually impossible, taking the transfer value on DH's pension would quite possible have been an excellent idea for you.
Oh, and Mrs B's instant reaction to this thread was exactly the same as LightTripper's. The rain is gonna be a shock if you move West!
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The rain is gonna be a shock if you move West!
+1. When we moved from the SE to the Welsh border I swear it rained for the entire first month. Rainfall was a big part of our decision to look in the East of the country for our last move.
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I can't find it now, but you said you might reconsider Scotland - oh, maybe you said it on a different thread. Anyway, if you do consider Scotland, remember that the laws on conveyancing are different. The buyer of a house in Scotland has to pay their deposit and legally commit to the purchase earlier in the process than a buyer of a house in England. I like their system, it seems to be faster than ours. But selling in England and buying in Scotland gets more tricky and stressful if you lose the buyer of your old house, but are still committed to buying your new house.
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Yes.. rain! We're quite used to the (kind of ;)) balmy weather in the south so are trying to find the balance of weather, location etc on our budget.. tricky but I think doable. We've heard from people in our lives that the east can be a lot colder as well. We're not sure if we'd prefer rain or colder lol. Any input welcomed. Thanks @LightTripper for raising the rain issue!
@PhilB cheers! That means a lot coming from a fellow mmmer! Yes we're flexible and not needing lots more money so again trying to find the sweet spot of house / location and a bit more spending money. But yes.. rain! Lol! 😬
@MarcherLady interesting you moved west to east as a result of the weather. Any thoughts on the cold where you are? We do like the coast and are near it now so with flooding in mind may look at that and temperature differences too. Yes, we are fairly open and Scotland is beautiful. A long way from where we're both from but neither of us have a lot of ties so maybe.. thanks very much for the point about buyers in Scotland.. that's a really useful point. We probably will sell here, rent and then buy but that would still be a bonus, for sure. Scotland also has free prescriptions etc I believe which is another bonus.
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I'll throw in a wild card, with plenty of properties in the original price bracket, and so very good options in the higher price band.
With a mainline station direct to to London, the Lake District to the south, Scottish borders to the north, and Northumberland to the east.
Looks like a nice 3-bedroom terrace for £115 (https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127833011#/?channel=RES_BUY/). Or if you wanted a potentially fantastic place in the country (in the higher price band), you convert this barn (https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129062339#/?channel=RES_BUY/), although it would be a full conversion from scratch.
Would I recommend this area? I don't know. It does rain a lot, and some of the locals aren't that friendly!
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Any thoughts on the cold where you are? We do like the coast and are near it now so with flooding in mind may look at that and temperature differences too.
We are very close to the sea, and that has a noticable affect on the temperatures compared to even 15 miles inland, where it is colder in the Winter and hotter in the Summer. We also get less snow than inland. The downside of that is we sometimes get a fret which sits on the coastal strip and blocks the sun while inland is basking in warmth. The main issue with Northumberland is the wind! It comes blasting in off the North Sea and can be... bracing. If we are going for a walk on the beach in the winter we often have to check the wind direction, if we want to avoid the wind-blown sand in our faces.
WeatherSpark (https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/45062~42189/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-London-and-Newcastle-upon-Tyne) is a good site to compare weather between towns.
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I'll throw in a wild card, with plenty of properties in the original price bracket, and so very good options in the higher price band.
With a mainline station direct to to London, the Lake District to the south, Scottish borders to the north, and Northumberland to the east.
Looks like a nice 3-bedroom terrace for £115 (https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/127833011#/?channel=RES_BUY/). Or if you wanted a potentially fantastic place in the country (in the higher price band), you convert this barn (https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129062339#/?channel=RES_BUY/), although it would be a full conversion from scratch.
Would I recommend this area? I don't know. It does rain a lot, and some of the locals aren't that friendly!
Thanks @MisterA .. that's a lot of nice house for £115k! Yeh, friendliness is quite important.. I think we'd like somewhere where there isn't an issue with 'oursiders' too.
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Any thoughts on the cold where you are? We do like the coast and are near it now so with flooding in mind may look at that and temperature differences too.
We are very close to the sea, and that has a noticable affect on the temperatures compared to even 15 miles inland, where it is colder in the Winter and hotter in the Summer. We also get less snow than inland. The downside of that is we sometimes get a fret which sits on the coastal strip and blocks the sun while inland is basking in warmth. The main issue with Northumberland is the wind! It comes blasting in off the North Sea and can be... bracing. If we are going for a walk on the beach in the winter we often have to check the wind direction, if we want to avoid the wind-blown sand in our faces.
WeatherSpark (https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/45062~42189/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-London-and-Newcastle-upon-Tyne) is a good site to compare weather between towns.
Thanks for this MarcherLady and that link. We find it a bit more temperate near the coast where we are now too but good to hear about the fret and wind... UK retirement seems to be.. rain, wind or cold lol! Looking forward to it though. How was it retiring at 50 by the way too?
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I thought I'd have a look in some of the places I've enjoyed holidaying recently. Shrewsbury seems to have options in your price range eg this bijou terraced cottage with river views:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129891056#/?channel=RES_BUY
Or this rather more spacious property, but you would need to paint your own view...
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128291768#/?channel=RES_BUY
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I thought I'd have a look in some of the places I've enjoyed holidaying recently. Shrewsbury seems to have options in your price range eg this bijou terraced cottage with river views:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129891056#/?channel=RES_BUY
Or this rather more spacious property, but you would need to paint your own view...
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128291768#/?channel=RES_BUY
Thanks PhilB, much appreciated. Shrewsbury wasn't on my list. Both those houses would suit, good value for money. I've had Oswestry in the back of my mind too which is fairly close to Shrewsbury, there always seems to be good properties in our price range there too.
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I thought I'd have a look in some of the places I've enjoyed holidaying recently. Shrewsbury seems to have options in your price range eg this bijou terraced cottage with river views:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129891056#/?channel=RES_BUY
Or this rather more spacious property, but you would need to paint your own view...
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128291768#/?channel=RES_BUY
Thanks PhilB, much appreciated. Shrewsbury wasn't on my list. Both those houses would suit, good value for money. I've had Oswestry in the back of my mind too which is fairly close to Shrewsbury, there always seems to be good properties in our price range there too.
I forgot Oswestry. I haven't spent much time there, but I do remember it looking lovely in the centre - and you are not wrong about the avaialability of good value properties. Lots of nice ones on Rightmove.
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I thought I'd have a look in some of the places I've enjoyed holidaying recently. Shrewsbury seems to have options in your price range eg this bijou terraced cottage with river views:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/129891056#/?channel=RES_BUY
Or this rather more spacious property, but you would need to paint your own view...
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/128291768#/?channel=RES_BUY
Thanks PhilB, much appreciated. Shrewsbury wasn't on my list. Both those houses would suit, good value for money. I've had Oswestry in the back of my mind too which is fairly close to Shrewsbury, there always seems to be good properties in our price range there too.
I forgot Oswestry. I haven't spent much time there, but I do remember it looking lovely in the centre - and you are not wrong about the avaialability of good value properties. Lots of nice ones on Rightmove.
Yes, it sounds like a really nice area but also good value which is great.
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2 things about those houses in Shrewsbury. They are very close to the river which has a habit of flooding badly every few years. The Darwin Street one may be high enough to avoid it but the Broome Place one isn't. Parking is very difficult in both those areas, which may not be an issue for you if you don't have a car but maybe you have visitors who do.
On the other hand they are fairly close to the railway station and bus station and Shrewsbury is generally a pleasant town with good facilities.
When I worked in Shrewsbury you could have bought houses like that for less than £4,000.
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Thanks bill1827, flooding risk is definitely something we'll take into account when the time comes. I've been driving Mr Jade mad with 40 year flooding forecasts whenever we talk about an area lol! Important to think about.
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Yes I haven't been to Oswestry but we have friends in North Wales who have it as one of their semi-local shopping towns and say it is nice. Shrewsbury does look good but I did wonder about flooding for that particular (very pretty) house when I saw the map!
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Carlisle also floods badly, as well as Shrewsbury. I wouldn't buy a house in either town even if the house itself was above the risk of flooding, because of the distress and disruption caused by flooding to the community you would be living in, the problems for transport and business that it causes, the cost to the local authority and the effect that has on services, and eventually the abandonment of parts of the settlement as unviable.
Mind you, I don't think the train line to where I live will survive the next forty years either. Finding safety at that level is going to be very difficult. This might be the starting point, though -
https://check-long-term-flood-risk.service.gov.uk/map
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Can't speak to Carlisle but that's a huge over reaction to Shrewsbury.
It's built round a river and the river has flooded periodically for the whole time that the town has existed. Most of the area is elevated above the flood level so only a pretty small area of the town is directly affected by floods. As long as you avoid those areas, which is easily done, the floods won't significantly affect you. It has a population of about 80,000, I suspect that only a few hundred would be directly affected by the floods and they had the option of exercising due diligence when they mover into the area.
There are many towns along the Severn which get flooded occasionally, Ironbridge, Bridgnorth, Bewdley, Worcester, Upton on Severn have all suffered significant flooding in recent years.
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Yes I haven't been to Oswestry but we have friends in North Wales who have it as one of their semi-local shopping towns and say it is nice. Shrewsbury does look good but I did wonder about flooding for that particular (very pretty) house when I saw the map!
That's good to know @LightTripper I have read good things about it there and it does seem reasonable. I have a bit of a fixation about flooding (as you can probably tell lol!) so though very picturesque we probably won't buy too close to the sea or a river.
I am going to compile a spreadsheet at some point of places and narrow things down. I think if we're renting first, choosing an area as accessible to all the possibilities will be a start and then maybe do some trips.
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Carlisle also floods badly, as well as Shrewsbury. I wouldn't buy a house in either town even if the house itself was above the risk of flooding, because of the distress and disruption caused by flooding to the community you would be living in, the problems for transport and business that it causes, the cost to the local authority and the effect that has on services, and eventually the abandonment of parts of the settlement as unviable.
Mind you, I don't think the train line to where I live will survive the next forty years either. Finding safety at that level is going to be very difficult. This might be the starting point, though -
https://check-long-term-flood-risk.service.gov.uk/map
Thanks @former player and for the link.
I'm aware I likely won't be around in forty years either but we're probably going to be just avoiding flood risk places generally.. it's fairly rare but it is upsetting to hear about people that lose their homes etc ( which could happen to anyone of course, but just lowering the risk).
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Can't speak to Carlisle but that's a huge over reaction to Shrewsbury.
It's built round a river and the river has flooded periodically for the whole time that the town has existed. Most of the area is elevated above the flood level so only a pretty small area of the town is directly affected by floods. As long as you avoid those areas, which is easily done, the floods won't significantly affect you. It has a population of about 80,000, I suspect that only a few hundred would be directly affected by the floods and they had the option of exercising due diligence when they mover into the area.
There are many towns along the Severn which get flooded occasionally, Ironbridge, Bridgnorth, Bewdley, Worcester, Upton on Severn have all suffered significant flooding in recent years.
Thanks for the info about areas @bill1827 -- I'll bear those in mind.
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This screen shot looks interesting from 2019.. a quick way to see average house prices etc.
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Oswestry is a nice market town, lots of independent shops, good facilities, very cheap houses. There's a few rough bits round the town centre. Definitely no risk of flooding in the town itself - the view from the old racecourse takes in a good chunk of mid-Wales and the West Midlands. Some of the places to the east e.g. Ellesmere are quite low lying though. There's a noticeable price drop as you cross the Welsh border. A lot of English people don't want to move even a mile into Wales - you'd think free prescriptions would be quite an incentive for some.
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Oswestry is a nice market town, lots of independent shops, good facilities, very cheap houses. There's a few rough bits round the town centre. Definitely no risk of flooding in the town itself - the view from the old racecourse takes in a good chunk of mid-Wales and the West Midlands. Some of the places to the east e.g. Ellesmere are quite low lying though. There's a noticeable price drop as you cross the Welsh border. A lot of English people don't want to move even a mile into Wales - you'd think free prescriptions would be quite an incentive for some.
Some of us remember "Come home to a real fire- buy a cottage in Wales". The cultural (and language) issues are real, although not so much on the borders, I guess.
Although if Scotland ever becomes independent and joins the EU I might be tempted to move up there and self-identify as Scots after 3 months.
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Oswestry is a nice market town, lots of independent shops, good facilities, very cheap houses. There's a few rough bits round the town centre. Definitely no risk of flooding in the town itself - the view from the old racecourse takes in a good chunk of mid-Wales and the West Midlands. Some of the places to the east e.g. Ellesmere are quite low lying though. There's a noticeable price drop as you cross the Welsh border. A lot of English people don't want to move even a mile into Wales - you'd think free prescriptions would be quite an incentive for some.
Some of us remember "Come home to a real fire- buy a cottage in Wales". The cultural (and language) issues are real, although not so much on the borders, I guess.
Although if Scotland ever becomes independent and joins the EU I might be tempted to move up there and self-identify as Scots after 3 months.
Exactly the slogan I was thinking of. That, plus too many experiences of people in shops changing from speaking in English to Welsh when I walked in, doesn't exactly put Wales at the top of my list. Maybe things have got better since then.
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Hi @cerat0n1a @PhilB and @former player thanks for the info. Yes, free prescriptions and EU membership would be a big incentive for us too!
We seem to have made some progress. We hadn't really been looking South due to prices but came across some articles about Plymouth (and surrounding villages) and Devon generally being a good place to retire, good property prices, nice locations and thinking this now might be the way to go for us. Train from Plymouth to Paddington is 3.5 hrs which isn't bad too.
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I thought it best to revive this topic rather than repeating a similar question, as there's a lot of useful info here already -- if you don't mind @cerat0n1a? Also apologies if I missed an update elsewhere, but I'd be interested to find out if you did end up moving and if so, how that went?
I don't remember whether I did do an update or not. We rented in York for a while, and ended up moving to the northern part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Prices rose quite significantly during the time we were renting, so although it removed a lot of the moving stress, and gave us time to carefully consider where to move to, it ended up being quite a costly decision.
I think we're still somewhat in the honeymoon period, but we absolutely love it here - still think 'wow' when I look out of the window, drive to the shops, go for a walk or run. Currently in the middle of major building work - the builders are excellent and making really rapid progress. Our stone farmhouse had a room which was accessible only from the garden, so that is being connected to the rest of the house, and four smaller rooms are being knocked through into one to create a big open-plan kitchen. There's a stone barn, a garage, a couple of outbuildings and an acre of land, which is taking a good part of my time. I took delivery of a load of bare-root native trees and shrubs this week and have been busy planting those.
The village is fairly touristy, which means we have a selection of pubs/restaurants and cafes within a very short walk. There is a shop, good access to doctor etc. There are a few holiday cottages, second homes and airbnbs, but a relatively low proportion compared to many other villages. Everyone has been very friendly and welcoming. Tourism and sheep farming are the main industries, but our immediate neighbours include a GP, an accountant, software engineers, a graphic designer and a woman with a decorative glassmaking business and there's a good number of people working from home during the day. We're not the only mixed-race couple, surprisingly.
Funny to look at my original criteria, very few of which ended up being met.
Proximity to national park(s) or an AONB - hills to run/walk in, forests, dark skies. Not too touristy though and not necessarily actually in the National Park.
Tick for all this, apart from the "not too touristy" bit - we're in one of the honeypot areas and weekend daytimes can get pretty busy in the small area around the car park. But still very quiet at almost all other times. Once you get out in the hills, away from the "three peaks", it's basically empty. We walked for a couple of hours along the River Swale last Sunday, in the sun, on a route that had featured in a BBC TV programme the week before, and didn't see a single other person.
Reasonably close to a mainline train route, decent road connections
Big fat no for this. 30-40 minutes drive to the settle-to-carlisle line or the east coast mainline. Similar distance to the A1.
Within walking distance of GP, supermarket, probably also pub/ restaurants, a bookshop.
Not too far from A&E/ hospital, an arts centre/ music venue, theatre & art galleries a plus.
Ideally somewhere with a running club and a place with traditional music sessions.
Have to go into Richmond or Leyburn for many of these things, and A&E is further still. Probably 10 art galleries within a few miles though, and a similar number of fancy places to eat. So a car is definitely necessary, although I often go for 2+ weeks without going anywhere by car.
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The cultural (and language) issues are real, although not so much on the borders, I guess.
From Oswestry itself, you enter Wales by driving North, South or West - and a direct line on the map to the east also passes through Wales. The supermarkets and banks have Welsh language signs, and you do occasionally hear Welsh spoken in town. But the area just over the border is not really any different.
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We seem to have made some progress. We hadn't really been looking South due to prices but came across some articles about Plymouth (and surrounding villages) and Devon generally being a good place to retire, good property prices, nice locations and thinking this now might be the way to go for us. Train from Plymouth to Paddington is 3.5 hrs which isn't bad too.
I lived in Plymouth in the mid 1990s and liked it very much. It's a pretty nice city. I guess Former Player might be able to say more. It does have some pretty rough housing estates, both the ex-council ones and the ex-military ones (the latter often very cheap due to poor maintenance in the past). It suffers from transport links - the train line can often be closed in winter by flooding around the coast, and the M5 and A303 can be completely gridlocked with Cornwall bound traffic from London in summer. Much of the surrounding area is lovely. My friends seem to have mostly ended up in villages on Dartmoor, the Bere peninsula, or over in Cornwall. South Hams can be quite expensive - places like Salcombe are notoriously filled with multi-million pound houses.
Given your self-description, Totnes might be interesting, about 20 miles from Plymouth. I like to mock it as the place to go if you find living in Glastonbury too mainstream - remember seeing three different people advertising didgeridoo lessons in the post office window. But it was the first 'transition town' I think, and has a lot of green stuff going on, a lot of cultural activity and lots of interesting courses at Dartington.
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I mostly go through Plymouth rather than stopping there, but theatre, cinema and the dry ski slope are reasons to stop, plus of course the coast, Dartmoor, and lots of nice heritagy places.
You can quite clearly see in the housing the effects of its being a major naval port and dockyard: Georgian buildings from Napoleonic times, then re-armament before the first and second World Wars creating a tier of Edwardian housing and a tier of 30s housing, then Hitler had a good go at taking some of it down.
This flat caught my eye (needs redecorating!) because I follow on Instagram a chap renovating the big house nearby https://www.instagram.com/manwithahammer -
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131583275#/?channel=RES_BUY
If you wanted to live outside the city you could check out the villages on the train line to Gunnislake, or maybe out to Callington -
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131352596#/?channel=RES_BUY
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131352596#/?channel=RES_BUY
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I thought it best to revive this topic rather than repeating a similar question, as there's a lot of useful info here already -- if you don't mind @cerat0n1a? Also apologies if I missed an update elsewhere, but I'd be interested to find out if you did end up moving and if so, how that went?
I don't remember whether I did do an update or not. We rented in York for a while, and ended up moving to the northern part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park. Prices rose quite significantly during the time we were renting, so although it removed a lot of the moving stress, and gave us time to carefully consider where to move to, it ended up being quite a costly decision.
I think we're still somewhat in the honeymoon period, but we absolutely love it here - still think 'wow' when I look out of the window, drive to the shops, go for a walk or run. Currently in the middle of major building work - the builders are excellent and making really rapid progress. Our stone farmhouse had a room which was accessible only from the garden, so that is being connected to the rest of the house, and four smaller rooms are being knocked through into one to create a big open-plan kitchen. There's a stone barn, a garage, a couple of outbuildings and an acre of land, which is taking a good part of my time. I took delivery of a load of bare-root native trees and shrubs this week and have been busy planting those.
The village is fairly touristy, which means we have a selection of pubs/restaurants and cafes within a very short walk. There is a shop, good access to doctor etc. There are a few holiday cottages, second homes and airbnbs, but a relatively low proportion compared to many other villages. Everyone has been very friendly and welcoming. Tourism and sheep farming are the main industries, but our immediate neighbours include a GP, an accountant, software engineers, a graphic designer and a woman with a decorative glassmaking business and there's a good number of people working from home during the day. We're not the only mixed-race couple, surprisingly.
Funny to look at my original criteria, very few of which ended up being met.
Proximity to national park(s) or an AONB - hills to run/walk in, forests, dark skies. Not too touristy though and not necessarily actually in the National Park.
Tick for all this, apart from the "not too touristy" bit - we're in one of the honeypot areas and weekend daytimes can get pretty busy in the small area around the car park. But still very quiet at almost all other times. Once you get out in the hills, away from the "three peaks", it's basically empty. We walked for a couple of hours along the River Swale last Sunday, in the sun, on a route that had featured in a BBC TV programme the week before, and didn't see a single other person.
Reasonably close to a mainline train route, decent road connections
Big fat no for this. 30-40 minutes drive to the settle-to-carlisle line or the east coast mainline. Similar distance to the A1.
Within walking distance of GP, supermarket, probably also pub/ restaurants, a bookshop.
Not too far from A&E/ hospital, an arts centre/ music venue, theatre & art galleries a plus.
Ideally somewhere with a running club and a place with traditional music sessions.
Have to go into Richmond or Leyburn for many of these things, and A&E is further still. Probably 10 art galleries within a few miles though, and a similar number of fancy places to eat. So a car is definitely necessary, although I often go for 2+ weeks without going anywhere by car.
Thanks for the update.. it's great to hear the process and also just you're in such a good place now.
That's a shame for you about the house prices rising at your same time. Something to consider.
It's great to hear how happy you are. That's what you want isn't it? And what all this saving money on mmm is all about, after all! You sound busy, I'm sure it'll be great to get the property how you want it.
It sounds like you have a nice range of people and also amenities. Where we live now is very touristy nearby at times too especially bank holidays so we make sure we are hermits and stay in the garden then! I have read about a few places in Devon that even consider people from neighbouring villages as outsiders so we're bearing that in mind too. I think criteria can help but things have a way of working on in their own way. you do found like you've found a great place!
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Totnes was one of the first places I thought of too, but Rightmove had nothing in your price range so I'm guessing it may be too expensive. I've only really seen Plymouth from the river and it didn't make a great impression - though that may just be me being tired after a long paddle.
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Totnes was one of the first places I thought of too, but Rightmove had nothing in your price range so I'm guessing it may be too expensive. I've only really seen Plymouth from the river and it didn't make a great impression - though that may just be me being tired after a long paddle.
Yes, from the river you would have got the full force of heavy industry in the dockyards and the surrounding council housing. Should have looked the other way.
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We seem to have made some progress. We hadn't really been looking South due to prices but came across some articles about Plymouth (and surrounding villages) and Devon generally being a good place to retire, good property prices, nice locations and thinking this now might be the way to go for us. Train from Plymouth to Paddington is 3.5 hrs which isn't bad too.
I lived in Plymouth in the mid 1990s and liked it very much. It's a pretty nice city. I guess Former Player might be able to say more. It does have some pretty rough housing estates, both the ex-council ones and the ex-military ones (the latter often very cheap due to poor maintenance in the past). It suffers from transport links - the train line can often be closed in winter by flooding around the coast, and the M5 and A303 can be completely gridlocked with Cornwall bound traffic from London in summer. Much of the surrounding area is lovely. My friends seem to have mostly ended up in villages on Dartmoor, the Bere peninsula, or over in Cornwall. South Hams can be quite expensive - places like Salcombe are notoriously filled with multi-million pound houses.
Given your self-description, Totnes might be interesting, about 20 miles from Plymouth. I like to mock it as the place to go if you find living in Glastonbury too mainstream - remember seeing three different people advertising didgeridoo lessons in the post office window. But it was the first 'transition town' I think, and has a lot of green stuff going on, a lot of cultural activity and lots of interesting courses at Dartington.
Thanks @cerat0n1a .. it's good to get a sense of the area. Hopefully on our budget we can find a nice village in it's own right away from too much traffic. Not too worried about transport links.
I've been to Totnes and liked it though as a friend says it might be too "strokey beardy" for me.. and definitely for Mr Jade! I think Devon has a slightly alternative vibe generally so I think that'll be ok.
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I mostly go through Plymouth rather than stopping there, but theatre, cinema and the dry ski slope are reasons to stop, plus of course the coast, Dartmoor, and lots of nice heritagy places.
You can quite clearly see in the housing the effects of its being a major naval port and dockyard: Georgian buildings from Napoleonic times, then re-armament before the first and second World Wars creating a tier of Edwardian housing and a tier of 30s housing, then Hitler had a good go at taking some of it down.
This flat caught my eye (needs redecorating!) because I follow on Instagram a chap renovating the big house nearby https://www.instagram.com/manwithahammer -
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131583275#/?channel=RES_BUY
If you wanted to live outside the city you could check out the villages on the train line to Gunnislake, or maybe out to Callington -
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131352596#/?channel=RES_BUY
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/131352596#/?channel=RES_BUY
Thanks @former player .. that's a nice flat. I'll make a note of those villages.
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Totnes was one of the first places I thought of too, but Rightmove had nothing in your price range so I'm guessing it may be too expensive. I've only really seen Plymouth from the river and it didn't make a great impression - though that may just be me being tired after a long paddle.
Yeh I think it can be expensive there. Ha! If all goes to plan we'll rent nearby in a few years and get the lay of the land. I think we're both thinking village rather than city though.
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If you wanted to stay on the Western side of Devon, Tiverton is very nice.
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If you wanted to stay on the Western side of Devon, Tiverton is very nice.
I had been wondering about Tiverton, thanks @PhilB I'll bear it in mind then.