To move from Brighton to Ringmer (Lewes)?

[Bigbluebeyond]

I'm hoping someone here can help me to make a decision!! We live in Brighton which we absolutely love but we are really outdoorsy and would love a massive garden and space (for us and our dog etc). Does anyone live in or near Ringmer? There are some fab houses and we are really tempted! We can't afford anything spacious or with really decent garden in Brighton. We have reception aged children and plan to have more. Anyone made a similar move? I don't want to end up hating it! Thanks v much.

Ringmers lovely and you definitely get more for you money.
I personally couldn't live somewhere without a train station (my dream place to live would
be glynde, but that Glynde man owns all the houses so you can only rent). But we love going to Ringmer, the little park, the pubs are lovely, etc

I'm always surprised how flat Ringmer is though.
You will probably be the same, coming from
Brighton!

One bonus is that they have a Dominoes.

I think Ringmer's alright! Close to the downs and close to Lewes. Be better to be in Lewes/Offham/Hamsey though I think. Hurstpierpoint is REALLY lovely also.

That house is great, I wish we had as much money as you

Off to look at some of the other places mentioned! Was put off Offham as is on a v busy road. Maybe Hurstpierpoint and surrounding areas as they seem nice from walks and visits!

I'm in Patcham, my garden is fairly big.

Some of the houses in westdene have massive gardens

Ringmer is very quiet and 'small town mentality'. It's a world away from Brighton. What about Uckfield if you're looking around the Lewes area? Or Eastbourne if you want to stay near the beach (we're not all old, and there's loads of family friendly things to do)?

Hassocks is lovely but I would also be tempted to look at parts of Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath / Cuckfield / Lindfield. If you don’t need to be near the train stations it can be relatively reasonably priced (for the area!!) whilst being able to get into Brighton / London fairly easily.

If you can’t afford Lewes you can’t afford Hurst... pp is right - Ringmer just seems massively dull and there’s nothing there for the size of it because it’s too close to Lewes, and uckfield I guess.

I think I know that house - isn't on the road to Uckfield? A bit outside the village? If it's where I'm thinking (and I haven't lived there for years so ignore me!) it's a drive away from the local shops, pub etc.

I'm biased because I love my old home town of Lewes! However, agree with a pp that Brighton will be more exciting.

I was thinking about this thread last night.

If you are looking at houses on sale for £649k then you can definitely afford Lewes and Hurst.

We just bought a 5 bedroom house for 450k, although it needs a lot of love.

We live much further North (near TW but still Sussex) and in a village so biased against towns - I HATED city life at uni - but there are some gorgeous rural areas around Uckfield, hamlets with excellent access to Brighton.

That house is lovely op but not in ther village so you'd still be fairly anonymous - only a dozen or so neighbours dotted around. You would have to drive everywhere though, no footpaths to get into the village which is a good 20 minute walk on narrow lanes once you've crossed the main road.
It's try Brighton outskirts or maybe lewes.

We live in Southwick. Our garden backs on to the south downs with horses and footpaths. We can walk to the sea in 20 or so min, the square and shops in 15. Perfect for national trust, woodlands but a night.out or shops in Brighton if the mood takes us! Oh and big house big garden 👌

I know exactly how you feel, we lived in Brighton and I loved it, DH wanted to move away from Brighton, we decided on Seaford, found a great property, I loved the house, but had many concerns about the move. DH was under no illusion that if I couldn’t settle we would move back to Brighton. Fast forward 16 years, really happy with our choice, wouldn’t go back to Brighton. In fact looking to downsize now, and may possibly move this year. I like Ringmer too, go for it OP.

Yes go to a prettier village in west sussex. I lived in ringmer, there is a main road going right through it so I don't think of it as very rural and it is boring, well as a teenager it felt it anyway. No train means youd have to drive everywhere. Lewes is fab but expensive.

I live in a village outside Brighton and I don’t find it nosy/gossipy at all. It’s simply not true to say that everyone will definitely know your business in a village. What a tired cliche.

We moved here from London. I initially wanted a place in Brighton but couldn’t find a big enough garden. I absolutely love it here; we are in the national park, and you walk out of our gate straight onto a footpath up a hill with stunning views.

I don’t know Ringmer, but I’d look at Hurst, Hassocks and Ditchling.

I wouldn't under estimate how much schools could inform your decision, some have very tight catchment areas and you'll be amazed at how quickly the time flies and secondary choices are also looming.Unless you are planning independent education or home education I'd look at schools, see if you like the feel of them etc and then use that to guide your buying.

This has been on for a while in Ditchling, really nice village, nice primary, all sorts of walks from your doorstep. The gardens are probably a bit small for you.
www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-82570772.html

Hassocks, Burgess Hill etc have nice properties on the outskirts but Burgess HIll is about to have a masssive development of 3,500 homes built on green fields, also lots of new building going on around Hassocks.

you would have to use the car in Ringmer, driving yourself and your family to and fro. imo.
there may be fields around but that might not last with the house building going on everywhere.

I doubt that Ringmer is a bad school tbh.

I grew up in Brighton. Friends of my parents moved to Ringmer when their kids were small but then ended up moving to Lewes once the boys were in secondary - it just didn’t work for them once they’d got a bit older.

Yes, look at Patcham. It’s an area that used to have a lot of older people who are now selling up so you can often get something that needs modernising but isn’t as fantastically expensive as some other areas in Brighton. The infant and junior schools are also well thought of.

Lewes is lovely but quite a different feel from Brighton. It’s sometimes quite hard to get a family house there as they can be sold before they ever go on the market. There are times when a house is for sale and the seller gets letters explaining why they should sell to a particular family - family, live in Lewes, grew up in Lewes. A friend who lives there said that she would always much prefer to sell to a Lewes person. Driving round there is awful too.

How about Battle, quite near Hastings, which is up and coming, so they say.

Having said that, I think prices fell quite sharply in Lewes when the Southern trains were being so dreadful.

Ringmer is not very pretty IMO, I live in Brighton and understand your desires for that kind of life but I work in Lewes and it has really put me off the place- I actually think it's quite provincial now.

@SapatSea ha, I nearly linked to that house too. Great location.

I know Ringmer well (live fairly close by) and have had friends and clients living there.

Many people I know call it the Village of the Dead, it is so bloody dull. The only interesting things that have happened in Ringmer in the 29 years I've lived in the area were when the firework factory caught fire and a group of travellers set up camp on the village green. A friend who lived there says that the best thing about it is that last bus back from Lewes is late enough for you to get a pint at last orders in Lewes and still catch the bus home.

Ringmer has 2 pubs, a truly grim chain pub and a slightly less grim non-chain pub. It has a busy main road running through the middle of it and horrendous traffic in both rush hours. The primary school isn't all that and people try and get their kids into the one in the next village north. There's been a lot of new development and more going on, and the population was well over 6,000 some 20 years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if it was approaching 9,000 now.

It has 3 things going for it: a very nice Indian restaurant, a good and reasonably priced beauty salon and a decent cafe that does a nice breakfast. Shopping is very limited, you'll need to go to Lewes (which has 3 supermarkets, but all small) or Uckfield (decent sized Tesco, tiny Waitrose) to do a "proper" shop.

There are plenty of nicer villages in the area. I'd suggest looking at Plumpton, Newick, East Hoathly, or even places like Fletching and Mayfield if being further north/east isn't a problem. In west Sussex, I rather like Steyning and Henfield (which I think is a small town, rather than a village, but still not much bigger than Ringmer), but I think house prices are higher there.

Or you could consider the outskirts of Lewes. The estates on the outskirts have decent sized gardens and good access to countryside. The area known as Nevill, up near the old racecourse, has family houses with decent sized gardens for under £500k (which sounds insane to me, but won't to someone from Brighton).