Living in Brighton

[Rhubarbgarden]

We are considering a move from London to Brighton. I know the city well as I lived there for ten years before moving in with my dh and have pined for it ever since. However my life has changed considerably since those days - my experience of it as a fab home town for a single professional girl who went clubbing and used the oven mainly as extra shoe storage, is not so relevant now that I have a toddler and another one on the way.

So I'd welcome any views on what it's like to live there as a family. I don't know anything about the schools, nurseries, baby and toddler facilities/activities etc etc. If we move there we will have to be central, to minimise the pain of the commute as much as possible for dh. We are going to look at a house in Seven Dials on Saturday which I reckon is a brilliant location, but please tell me if I'm wrong.

Thanks!

Fiveways is a great place to bring up children. Lots of nurserys and good primary and secondary schools. Great park culture too. Sorry, I don't really know 7 dials that well, what parks are near?

Nearest park would be St Ann's Well Gardens. Which I've never been in, so it's on my investigation list for Saturday. Dyke Road Park also reasonably nearby

Seven Dials is a great location with a few local shops, pubs and eateries. You can walk into town easily, or catch the number 7 bus if you want to save your legs. The station is very close by and it (Seven Dials) has quite a nice vibe.

You will love St Anns Wells gardens. It's a very well-cared for park with a super playground, tennis courts, woodland natural area, a pond (fenced off), bowling green, cafe, toilets and a blind garden - to name just a few of its features

Your nearest primary school would probably be

Somerhill

I've never been to St Ann's Well gardens but I've heard good things about it. My eldest loves the Booth museum

Agree with PestoSnowMonster, St Ann's Well Gardens is fab. My brother and sister-in-law live in Hove and we spent a happy afternoon there in the summer.

Happy house hunting!

Friend of mine has not long moved down to Brighton and her status updates are full of how great it is.
I am rather jealous

Ooh it's all sounding rather good. Except that I've just done a bit of primary school research, and although Somerhill is the nearest, the house we are going to look at is beyond it's catchment. Same story for the next closest school, Stanford. We might just be in with a shot with Middle Street but it would be a close call. Bugger. Anyone with any relevant experience? What happens if you are in this sort of school dead zone? There are a couple of church schools nearby but I'm not a church-goer so assuming those are off limits.

Sorry can't help you with inner Brighton primaries, but I do know that church primaries are open to all and are usually rather good. So don't write them off just yet

You will love living in Brighton, good luck with your house-hunt and move!

Oh thanks that's encouraging. I'm not against church schools per se, but I'm not prepared to 'find religion' in order to get my children into one! If they are eligible without us having to do any fake hymn singing that's fine by me.

Argh, dilemma, dilemma. So we viewed the house on Saturday, and it's great. Even my impossible to please dh was excited by it. St Ann's Well Gardens are indeed lovely and the area is just right. But there are three sticking points:
a) The Commute. Dh is having cold feet about this. But this house is only 10 mins walk from Brighton station so really, it's as good as it gets. If this house is rejected for commuting reasons, then really, leaving London is out full stop... .

b) The Garden. It's a bit small, overlooked and south-east facing. It felt very shady and damp. Here in London I have a 100ft south facing very private garden [lucky]. I am a professional gardener; gardening is my 'thing'. This garden is probably as big as it gets in central Brighton (it's about 30ft), and not exactly tiny, so if I reject this house for garden reasons, I should probably forget Brighton .

c) Timing. Dc2 arrives in May. The house is a do-er upper. We would have to rent somewhere while renovating. Having a baby, finding somewhere to rent, moving, renovating, all at the same time? It's a bit mad... But, we've been looking at houses for two years. The last time a house like this came on the market in this location was a decade ago. If we reject this house for timing reasons, we might not get the chance again.

Just don't know what to do. Turning it over and over in my head and tying myself in knots!

Well I do think it's all doeable, just a bit manic.

Firstly, it would be a shame to dismiss this opportunity for the sake of the commute. Maybe your DH could try it for a year or two and see how it goes?

Secondly, there is a good market in rental properties in Brighton. I can recommend Parks Letting Agents in Queens Road (just down the road from the station). I'm sure they would be able to help you, and if not, there are plenty of others - Leaders springs to mind.

As for the garden, we too wanted a Southerly or Westerly garden when we were house-hunting and dismissed many houses for that very reason. However, when the house we are currently in came up - with an East facing garden, it had soooo many other redeeming features that we were willing to compromise on the garden. It turned out to be a godsend, especially whilst the dds were babies, as we would get full sun in the mornigns, and then by lunchtime the patio would start to get some shade and by the afternoon, the part nearest the house would be completely shady and therefore very sun-safe for babies and toddlers. We set up a lovely sandpit that they would play in for hours.

Anyhoo, worth thinking about maybe? Brighton is such a great place to be, just depends what you can compromise on. Good luck

Thanks Pesto. it's a good point about shade and small children. I wish I could fast forward and see how much sun it gets in summer though. It's surrounded by tall buildings, so it's not just the aspect that's the problem. Gah, I'm so conflicted. I feel like I've got to choose between my passion (gardening) and my dream (moving to Brighton). We can't afford to make a mistake; stamp duty is such a big deal that if/when we move this has to be the place we stay in for the next twenty years. Or so dh says anyway! Think we are going to try to spend a week there soon so he can try the commute. I'm normally quite decisive about stuff, but this is such a big decision I am lurching one way then the other every hour!

We've gone through this for the last two years and have ended up deciding to stay in London, mainly cos of the commute - DH just couldn't face spending that much of his life on trains and the knock-on effect of not seeing the kids as much (or even at all) before/after work. But it was also depressing how much less house and garden you got for your money in Brighton. The schools are great, especially around Fiveways, and I know lots of people do make the leap, but we just couldn't make it work. Hope you have better luck!

Thanks Pinkdelight.

We've now made the decision not to buy it . I feel really down about having almost had Brighton within my grasp, to have it slip away again. Maybe one day...

Sorry to read that. We've just made a very similar decision in main part for exactly the reasons pinkdelight gives. DH would be going from a train journey which is 15 mins door to door, to one that was over an hour. I think it's fine if you have a partner who can leave work on time (ever - ) but in our case it would have meant DH rarely seeing the DCs Monday to Friday.

Whereabouts are you in London at the moment? I have a feeling you're also SE, if I remember correctly from another post. We've just landed again in SE London having been abroad for 2 yrs and I'm trying to get my head around it all!

I love living here but we have no commute and that is the main thing that has sent some of our friends kicking and screaming back to London (sorry)

Hi Lottie, does that mean you've given up on lovely Matfield then? Oh no! The commute is a big deal though. We decided that we really should get past the small baby stage before moving. Dh can usually get home for dd's bathtime at the moment so losing that would be a big change for all of us. We are indeed in SE London, in Cambersmell Camberwell, whereabouts are you? Do you think you'll move when the twins are older? I keep crying, it's really pathetic, I blame the pregnancy hormones but really, I've wanted to get the hell out of London for so long I feel quite bitterly disappointed to have had it within my grasp and then let go.

Am very close to you - in SE15 :) I have a flat in SE5 too - on Camb Grove (although tis the size of a postage stamp...).

So sorry to hear you're so sad about it. For us I think it took leaving London and then coming back to appreciate it a bit - we've only been back in the house for a week but as soon as we walked through the door I started having palpitations about selling up. Lots of reasons - DH commute, my ability to get back into the job market, etc etc. We are lucky in that we have a big garden here, have a decent house already, are a stone's throw away from a good nursery/pre-prep (oh were we to get a place..), and overlook a park. So the usual reasons for wanting to get out didn't apply so much. I still have my dream of living out of London, but I think we're going to put it on hold for a couple of years at least and are now looking to get an architect into this place for a bit of an overhaul. Sigh.

It's so hard making these decisions. Was it your DH who gave the final 'no'?

we've just moved back to London after living in Brighton for 5 years. at first dh was commuting, but he hated it so much he moved to a job closer to Brighton. he hated working there though and hankerred after a job in London. I also commuted and it was that that finally did it for me. it's too tiring, too expensive and I didn't see the dcs enough. We lived in seven dials too by the way.

I think Brighton is a lovely place to live if you're not commuting. But otherwise it's a killer. The trains are rarely 50 minutes - at peak time they're longer and it doesn't take into account the distance either end and changing trains. Plus there are frequently delays, cancellations etc etc.

If I go back to Brighton to live it will only be if I don't commute anymore.

Camb Grove - gosh how funny that really is very close to us! Small world. Is The Villa the nursery/pre prep you're talking about? Dd is down for there (fingers crossed). I know what you mean about palpitations about leaving. You do get a lot of house and garden for your money in this area; it would be very hard to leave our house behind even though I'd leave Denmark Hill as a high street in a heartbeat. Sigh. Funnily enough, after years of badgering dh about moving back to Brighton, it was me who made the final decision to not buy the house, and the clincher was the rubbish garden. I think that's why I feel so sad - I can't whinge and get angry and blame dh; I know in my heart of hearts it was the right decision.

Beattie I think a lot of people find the commute to be too much, and I do worry that if we do make the move one day, it will break dh. But if we stay in London, I think it will break me eventually.

Is renting an option? it seems really sensible in your situation. Give you a good way to really suss it all out. I agree the trains can be a pain - I get them out of London sometimes to Brighton and its been a pain recently as people keep nicking the copper cables! But youd have good weekends!

Yes Rhubarb - tis The Villa. I called them a couple of months ago and they had places from April due to expansion. I fear that won't be the case now though :(

I think it's good that you were the one to make the final decision. We were lucky in our case that it was a mutual decision, which was surprising because I had been 100% pro us moving, but I was the one to develop the most reticence.

Renting is a good suggestion, although if you're anything like me the thought of it isn't particularly appealing. People told us to do that too and I looked at rentals but couldn't get inspired and just wanted to move straight into a long-term home. What about moving to a nicer part of London? Not sure exactly where you are (although obv have a pretty good idea if you're near C.G. ) but you can move a couple of streets away and find that you never need to go to the grim bits (or is that just me?) - my 'local' high streets are either Bellenden Road or Lordship L. Have to confess to giving all the other high street bits a wide berth

You might get lucky with the Villa, you never know; a lot of people put their kids down for several nurseries then decide at the time. Plus the expansion should mean less pressure than usual. I spend most of my time on Lordship Lane! Still hard to avoid the local high street totally though - got to go to doctors, bus stops etc so the endless fried chicken shops and people spitting etc is eternally depressing. As you've just got back to this country, if you are looking for local toddler group recommendations just pm me, there is so much stuff going on in Dulwich.

Renting is a sensible suggestion but dh would never be convinced. He likes living in this house too much. That's half the problem. I would be happy to move to a 'lesser' house in a nice part of London, but he is SO picky about architecture; for him it has to be Georgian or early Victorian (with no 'fiddley bits' ), he won't consider any houses that don't have the wow factor. If we could only pick up this place and move it somewhere nice...

Anyway we are going to spend a week in Brighton soon so he can try the commute and figure out if he could realistically work on the train. That will give him a better idea. Then we'll wait till this second offspring is out and reconsider how the land lies then.