London to Folkestone, any experience of moving there...

[AuraofDora]

that you can share with me?

DH is mad keen, and well, I've only been for an afternoon so don't feel qualified to make a decision.
My main queries are -
the commute, it would only be me still working in London, does this sort of daily travel grind you down? I know the HS train is only an hour but it means being uber organised and leaving work on time all the time to have some family time
the mix of people, is it mixed and is it chilled?
Schools look fine - any horrors to avoid?
and just how did you feel?
I would be sad to go, there is much here I love about London. Also scared that the family will have new life there whilst i trundle to London everyday to pay the bills and just become a weekender
DH feels it has a lot to offer, Creative Quarter, fantastic countryside and seaside, lively town etc and we should get in at the bottom.

Any thoughts, comments - have you done this, do you rate it, or do you yearn to come 'home'?

Aura, you need to go and check out places yourself, what one person doesnt like another does. I dont know Folkestone apart from the front part which is lovely. We are moving out of London after being priced out, yet DH still needs to commute in, when we tell people where we`re moving we get this face . But, we feel happy with it.

It is not the new Brighton I have lived in both

Saltwood near Hythe is stunning and it has Sanding station within walking / cycling distance - a village primary school and secondary school too - I grew up around there and would go back in an instant ! REALY lovely ! It's about 5 miles west of Folkestone. The 'Saga' man has redeveloped swathes of Sandgate, I believe - another nice area with good beaches - but you will need a car to get to the train station....
It's worth spending at least a weekend driving around ... as there are so many other interesting villages and towns on the rail link ! Have fun ! :-)

Thanks, a lot of food for thought here and great to get a more balanced view too - callmecordelia and puddock was really quite relieved to read your posts.
There were deli's and cafes and micropubs and a michelan star restaurant so was not understanding the grim reports

Is it chilled? Are people quite friendly and mixed would you say?

Our (my and ds's) problem probably is the moving from London bit; we are after an affordable home, - if I have £500,000 i'd be fine in London - we have much less than that!
DH thinks we could make a new start there, but for the short/medium term I would be a commuter which fills me with dread quite frankly.

I will check out the other villages locations suggested too, I know I need to spend time there and make up my own mind - one man's meat etc - but was just canvassing for general opinions, especially interested if anyone had made the break from the city to seaside

Has your dh got connections there?

Nope. If only. Noddyholder

I think he is having a mid life moment, wants to do something creative, before he's too old, he is talented but there is no basis to this move other than shrinking our mortgage and living by the sea but with me schleping to the city everyday...

Are you considering other areas? I think if you had friends and family there I would get it but really otherwise it could be difficult. I go back there now and then with dp and enjoy the day but am always glad to get home

Yes, if we had friends/family there it would make a lot more sense, but he doesn't seem to see that. Bit of a loner really.

Also, although we are not that near them it does take us further away from his parents, (his brother lives in US) and from my mum too.

I don't know anything about Folkestone, but I agree the prospect of schlepping to London everyday to be the breadwinner is not massively appealing.

Is your DH good domestically? I.e. will he keep the home fires burning, or will you arrive back from the train station and have to start cooking, cleaning, washing and sorting out book bags? This would be key for me.

I don't know Folkestone well enough to comment on the grim/not grim debate but I'd think very hard about that commute, especially if it won't be DH's problem as you might find you come to resent it. People's tolerances for commute times vary so you need to think about what you have found a comfortable time frame in the past.

Its a long old commute that. Also my son who just left Folkestone for Canterbury is an actor. And he wasnt particularly inspired there. He did a few open poetry reading things and some small ish theatre bits but he isglad to be out of there.

We lived near Hythe for 7 or so very happy years and were very sad to have to leave. As OnePlan says just up thread, Saltwood is a lovely place to live, although I don't believe the local station (Sandling) has the high speed train stopping there.

Although we didn't actually live in Folkestone, we went there a lot including for schools, shopping, socialising etc. The West End has some absolutely lovely houses (and of course prices to match) and is worth looking at.

There are loads of commuters - we left before the fast trains were introduced but even the 1.5 hour slow train was full of folk travelling to the city.

teatimesthree he is very domesticated and a good cook to boot and does all that stuff at the moment because my hours are longer than his, so thankfully no worries on that score

At the moment I can get to work in 35 mins door to door, the idea of having to be at a train station so early and then to leave bang on time or be stuck for another hour - it's a new mindset for me.
I've been here for over 25 years

We looked at lovely house on Radnor Park Road, really charming and I know he is keen to make it work, just worried I'd be the weekender, foot in both camps and heart nowhere. Giving up everything we have in London but still to make the journey each day.
My company has recently had a round of redundancies and this is what spurred him on to look into other places and reduce our outgoings but it would be a hefty fee for a train pass. Not sure I could get a job there - I work in specialised area of publishing so unlikely I think.

Thanks, I am going to check out these other places too, but fear they will add more time to the commute. Is that selfish, I dunno.

Strange thing is I have always fancied living by the sea but feel this would be living on a rail track.

I started my married life by moving from central London to Hythe. I did the commute daily into London, £6k for an annual season ticket!

We lasted six months before moving out.

The never ending wind killed me, it would look gorgeous outside, but then it would be cold and windy outside.

We didn't find the was a real sense of community, it felt quite disjointed.

The high speed train was amazing. But I wouldn't want to live in Folkestone and anywhere else you've got to drive to the station.

There were some good restaurants in Hythe. And the seafront is great for cycling/strolling.

If we wanted to catch a play or concert we'd end up going to Canterbury. Same for anything hospital related.

In balance, I'm very happy in my new town as opposed to Folkestone!

I think as commutes compare,

folkestone isnt bad, the creative quarter may be a bit of a red herring as its been very mismanaged at times but theyre doing their best. hythe is very pretty but lots of retired people live there and not much happens. cheriton has cheap housing and good transport links and is still considered folkestone. the folkestone academy is supposed to be a good school.

also saga magazine is published in sandgate and theres a couple of other small publishers around folkestone.

I love Folkestone! I lived in the town for 18 years, moving out when I married. I still work there. Yes it is a bit run down but it has a quirky charm about it and there is ongoing regeneration.

There are good schools,;the Creative Quarter has fantasuic venues for adult ed ( where I work) and for events and gigs. The harbour has an old fashioned charm about it and the sandy beach is good for kids when the tide is out.
There is a busy leisure centre and a dry ski slope and all the major supermarkets ( except Waitrose but there is one in Hythe).
There's also the M20, the fast rail link and the Euro Tunnel terminal. Canterbury is 30 mins away by car. Maidstone 45 mins and Ashford 15.

The Literary Festival takes place every year and draws some excellent and well known speakers to the event.

You could take a look at Sandgate, Seabrook or Hythe as alternate areas to look for a house, though property tends to be a bit pricier. And away from the coast there is Hawkinge or Lyminge.

The commute is better from ashford, Tonbridge or even maidstone if you want victoria.

Hi Dora were in a similar position although it would be dh commenting to london bridge.

We've been down to ashford & looked at a few houses & you can get a big 3 bed house with a garden for less than £250,000 atm

Canterbury is lovely but the commute is just a little bit too long for dh - were thinking 1 hour max & we have to be less than a mile from thr station.

I'm worried about leaving london - I was born here. But it would be lovely to be near the sea

I love sandgate it's such a lovely area. I live the other way in broadstairs and that's lovely too.
I just wouldn't underestimate the commute. My brother did it for a year and he was permanent exhausted.
Good luck

Thought I'd add my (late) input to this thread, in case it's still relevant to the OP, or anyone else.

We've just moved to Sandgate from Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire, we've been here for two months. My husband commutes to London where he works in technology for one of the banks. I'm a freelancer editor and work from home.

The attraction for us was the ability to live close to the sea, still be commutable to the City, and to reduce our housing costs. We bought a lovely semi-detached in Sandgate for a fraction of what it would have cost us in the City or in Bucks. Yes, we could have afforded two or perhaps three times more, but it's a lovely feeling paying a small fraction of your income into a mortgage.

As for the town itself I had some of the worries expressed above too. For the most part they've proven unfounded. Yes there are some grim parts of town, but you can say that about most places of any size. Sandgate is lovely, if still a little run-down in places. On a sunny day, when the wind is down the beach is stunning. The sunsets are really lovely too. The neighbours and locals have all been so much friendlier than in Beaconsfield, and more authentic in their interest in you, if you know what I mean. I personally found that area of Bucks to be extremely snobby and "keeping up with the Jones" for my taste, and it's a relief to be in a more relaxed environment.

The Folkestone town centre itself is rather shabby. It's proven tricky to find decent Thai food and the like, but you can't have everything. Sandgate has some nice cafes (Loaf is fantastic) and Hythe is a bit posher and therefore has a sprinkling of quite nice restaurants. If you need more of a big town feel there are decent facilities in Ashford which is only a 15-20 minute drive away.

Living in East Folkestone is probably to be avoided, there are some seriously grim bits of housing there. Sandgate, some of Cheriton, and Hythe are all nice. We are within riding distance of the station here in Sandgate. Folkestone West is adding 200 parking spaces so people must be waking up to the place being a reasonable commuting option. It amazes me that it's taking this long, but then I think it's easy to be put off by the less salubrious parts of town. The regeneration will be a slow process, but you can see that the foundations are there.

My husband is finding the commute manageable. He works in Mayfair and finds it takes 75 minutes or so all up, door to door. It's not great, but manageable, apparently, particularly if you can work on the train.

In summary it's not perfect, but if you choose the right part of town it's remarkably good value for money.

OP - can you rent for a bit? So that you can fine tune your decision of exactly where to live in the area....if buying is cheap - renting must be cheap also - you could rent out your London property (if prices are still rising) and then sell.

Hi, just found this thread searching for thoughts on moving to Folkestone. Just wondered what you decided to do? We are almost certainly leaving East London for Folkestone, just need to make that final decision and get our house on the market. Seems no more grim than East London to me (in fact much prettier, relaxed etc), plus fab access to London, beaches, countryside, and in our case grandparents which is definitely appealing! My DH is slightly less convinced but he's London born and bred so this is a big deal for him (and he will be commuting into London initially which is long I think). I visit Folkestone a lot to see my parents and really like it, but I know it's not the same as living there.