If you moved to Cornwall did it work out?

[MarchHare339]

I want to relocate and was surprised to find some lovely houses at reasonable prices. Obviously there are hordes or tourists in the summer and the ‘grockle’ factor. Looking for a three bed with nice garden , hopefully with some character and near the sea. I loved St Agnes and like North Cornwall more than South. Did it work out for you?

We have emmets. The locals can't afford nice 3 beds near the beach at St Agnes. You'll be fine.

In all seriousness though, the villages like St Agnes are overrun with second homes and holiday lets. They're decimated out of season.

Devon but I’m based in Cornwall for work a lot. It depends a bit on if you’re moving with family (& ages) and where from - as leaving chunks of family “up country” can be really hard.

its lovely but can be isolated; which is either fab or stuck at the end of the world in a bad way.

i had a lot of “pull” reasons to move, and I’m a city girl at heart, so I find it hard. But I still love it and I’m proud to be one of our party with Cornish friends

You might enjoy a recent novel: Our Holiday about people with a second home on the south coast. It's utterly trenchant and the lies NEVER stop!

Ive lived in Cornwall for over 30 years. However I was brought up in a similar place in Devon, so there was very little no difference so its probably to be expected that I found it home.

I've seen people fit in and not. They all wanted to, so I'm not sure you can call who will and who won't. Depends what they miss from their old lives when they arrive. We have most things but they are almost all a decent drive away!

Do thunk about what you love doing on a day to day basis. Check out where these opportunities exist all year round. Some of the most beautiful have literally nothing in winter but the scenery - few neighbours due to second homes, and places close for the quiet season. But pick somewhere where there is more community and you'll have lots of interest groups, U3A, restaurants of which some open all year round, walks, doctors (few dentists and no NHS but that's the same all over I think), few gyms but sea swimming, running and hashing clubs.

If you think you'll need decent hospital access make sure you have good connections to Truro or Plymouth as its where the main hospitals are with little or no public transport to them.

If you are retired you could try coming for a month or two in winter and travelling around. I'd imagine many holiday lets would be happy to do you a deal for a longer stay over winter. You could stay in a few places....Cornwall isn't a small county!

Oh and wherever you buy.....make sure you have parking!!!

You've reminded me of how my parent's GP manages prescriptions. They don't have online ordering, so they take a paper copy to the post office a couple of miles away. The post office takes the scripts to the GP twice a week, collecting the previous prescriptions ordered at the same time. Everyone then goes back to the post office to collect on Tuesday or Friday.

Time moves differently down here. A 20 mile trip to Truro can easily take an hour. Even the park & ride doesn't open on Sundays or bank hols.

This shows how you have to be careful!

We have online ordering. Our medications then come via post and my husbands ti the local.pharmacy (who call when it's ready to.collect). We have district nurses call for my elderly Dad. Last week I had an infection and got an appointment that day when I rang at 8.30am (although people often say they can't get one but I did). My kids were born and dragged up here and health wise the provision was fine except for the distance to the hospital for hospital stuff and maternity. When Dad was in hospital last year I had to visit daily as I'm all he has and he was in ward isolation with dementia so had to have a visitor. It took me over 90 minutes each way from home to his ward.

Mum got moved from Treliske to Liskeard after breaking her hip last year. Using the P&R was a lifesaver for visiting at Treliske, but Dad (who causes queues on the A38!) was taking about 90 mins to get to Liskeard in time for visiting. The joy of single carriageways and constant 30mph speed limits!

I wouldn’t commit to buying before you’ve spent a winter down here, particularly if you currently live somewhere with crisp, dry (or snowy) winters. Cornish winters are long, warm and wet, with endlessly grey skies.

The A30 dualling has helped with congestion in mid Cornwall, but friends in Hayle now say the traffic’s even worse than before because there’s more of it. The summer holidays are to be endured rather than enjoyed but if you can organise yourself for early starts then you can get to the beach before everyone else. Or just go after 5pm when the holidaymakers go home for the day.

I wouldn’t live anywhere else though. I recently spent a week in London and while I loved being back in the big city, I felt such an enormous sense of relief when the train rounded the estuary at Dawlish and all I could see was the sea. I’m just 15 mins’ drive from the sea now and it keeps me sane. St Agnes does have plenty of second homes and holiday lets but it also manages to have a nice community feel.

No, and we knew the area very well (family living there).

It was very remote, no facilities or amenities, ghastly in the summer when it was very difficult to get on with everyday life.
But the worst thing was the awful unpleasantness from people- it turned out to be so toxic and small minded.

We stayed 7 years and moved away.

That's such a poor service, surely rural GPs should be making the most of the technology available to support their communities not harder! My mum is in her 80s and she orders her prescription online and doesn't drive anymore so would find that such a difficult system.

My IL's moved to rural Cornwall in late retirement.

Seemed an odd choice as they had never even visited the place and all it did was isolate them hundreds of miles from family. People did visit and make a mini break of it but not as often as they thought they would.
Village was an odd location, no footpaths and just a single garage/shop for essentials with everything else having to be bought from the nearest town. No "pretty" walks from the village and although they were relatively close to the sea, they never went there.
When FIL was taken ill he had to go to a major hospital over 60-miles away which meant MIL could not visit as she had stopped driving (hated the narrow lanes leading to their village!). In the end she had to pay a taxi and stop in a hotel near the hospital.

Do your homework.

The surgery is fab & obviously has patient access etc. It's just like many in their late 80s, my parents don't use the Internet and there's little mobile reception in their village. It's a well used service.

No it didn’t. In fact it was the biggest mistake of our lives. We’re in the process of moving away again. We’re actually Cornish and moved back thinking it would be the perfect childhood for DC. We were wrong.

It experienced a short bloom and some positive changes within the last decade but the state of the county in recent years is reminiscent of the 90s.

I don’t know what’s happening but it’s depressing, the NHS is awful here (my waiting time is over 40 weeks here for a consultant and in Somerset is just 16 weeks), I have heard more racism in the last 6 months than I remember in the 80s & 90s, repeated redundancies all around and everyone just seems miserable

Four families on my street are moving away for exactly the same reasons and we don’t live far from St Agnes.

Definitely do your homework. But be super realistic. It is beautiful and the food is glorious. Some people have a great time. I guess it depends on what you want, how much money you have and what stage of life you’re at. 🌊

DH is from Cornwall - inlaws live down there. Summer traffic is hell, healthcare on its arse and town centres depressing. If you like fancy places you'll find they're empty in wintertime. And that drive! I spent so many hours and hours on the A30 in last 30 yrs than I care to remember. Friends (also Cornish) bought second home down there and ended up selling it as they thought it was just not worth it.

My friends parents have moved to Cornwall to semi retire, they bought a new build in a not too touristy town, not far from Plymouth- they have a new outlook on life, sea swimming in winter, surfing, paddle boarding etc.

However they came from semi rural living, northern village, close to the coast so not a huge culture shock.

I think it’s different if you are a city person, and are accustomed to everything on your doorstep, their nearest city is Plymouth and they don’t online shop so all clothing etc (apart from seasonal or activity based things) have to come from there. There is zero takeaway deliveries and they find the locals a bit strange and insular within their own communities- unlike them who would think nothing of driving 2 hours to explore on their days off (20 miles can take two hours in peak season, plus there isn’t very many main roads!)