A move to Lincolnshire - a good place to raise your family?

[mummyneedssomesleep]

Hi,

I have a young family and we are thinking of a move to Lincolshire.

The areas that I know a little about are Spilsby and surrounding area.

I would appreciate information from anyone who lives in Lincolnshire. Where are the best areas to raise kids?

Thanks

I grew up in Lincolnshire. It is extremely boring, so make sure you pick a small town or they will having nothing to do as teens, and you will spend your life in the car. You do get a lot of house for your money though.

Thanks for the reply.
Being able to afford a bigger house is definately a consideration for us.
I don't know whether its best to live in a town with noisy traffic but everything close by, or somewhere quieter but facilities further away.

There are pros and cons of both and we just need to decide which is best for us.

OH NO NO NO
No nice middle class mums
rough rough
the onyl place in the world where town cntre parking is free on sats.

ANd WINDy and cold

It can be a bit windy, that's true. The shopping is dire - where else would you get a department store called Binns ..? (says it all). However über posh mummy Samantha Cameron hails from near Scunthorpe, so there is hope.

They also speak a different language:

Beer off - off licence
Trump - fart
Mash the tea - brew the tea
Black over Bill's mother's - clouds in the distance are very dark

Property prices are very low so presumably there are good reasons for that?

Nah then, I grew up in Lincolnshire too. I'd describe it as "the land that time forgot". Essentially it's like Norfolk but without the proximity to London.

I miss the city, the cathedral, the enormous sunsets but NOT the social life - there wasn't one! TBH Lincoln itself is/was a small and quiet city so you may as well live there (nice areas/schools uphill close to cathedral). Noisy traffic won't be a problem except in the week of the Christmas Market. You will only be 5 minutes from the countryside (by bike, that is) and it's rumoured there is now a Waitrose in the area. There are some antique-y small market towns such as Spilsby and Horncastle but they are remote, very remote.

Also the Highways Agency have helpfully dualled the A46 so it's much quicker to escape to centres of civilisation such as Nottingham.

It's a good move if you are partial to cabbages

DH was working in Lincolnshire and lived there in the week for nearly two years. Was near Boston and it is the land of the brassica.....everywhere you looked, cabbages, sprouts, caulifower, brocolli.

Big skies though and very flat.

Spilsby and the surrounding area I thought was really nice; we broadly considered a mover there because of DH's work and I liked it as it reminded me of where I grew up in Scotland, but DH said the winters were desperate and that the big sky just got more and more oppressive as the winter went on.

I'd still have considered it though, although as DH pointed out most of Lincs will be under water if global warming continues so all the house for your money will be worth toffee, unless it's watertight!!

boffin, we mash tea in yorkshire as well

those things are said in Nottingham too boffinmum where I grew up - my mum still says beeroff!

A bit grim I think, but then again I have only been to Skegness

Stamford is gooorgeos, it's like the Cotswolds. I have always hated Lincs, too many summers working at Skegs but DH took me there last month and now I almost fancy upping sticks. You can get to Leicester in 30 Mins straight to London, or drive to Peterbro and into Kings x.

Ecky thump Daisy, I never knew that.

You can park free in the town I live in, in Belgium on every day of the week!

I moved to Lincolnshire 10 years ago

It was a huge culture shock, I have always lived in big towns and cities so it was a very different environment. It can be like living in the 1950's at times and there is an element of suspicion of anyone not local.

In all honesty I wouldn't have stayed had I not met dh. He doesn't want to move away, even though he's not local either.

We live in one of the larger market towns. Houses are very, very cheap here, there are rough bits as well as nicer parts, like most towns really. DD goes to a fantastic school, there are both good and bad schools in the area, the good ones tend to be massively oversubscribed.

It's easy to have an outdoorsy style life, lots of countryside to roam in, the seaside's not far etc etc. The downside is that we have to travel 35 miles to the nearest good sized town/city and decent shops. Not sure how I'd manage without a tinternet

You need to be able to drive, and to run a car for each adult.

Agree that Stamford is lovely but is £££ compared to most of Lincs

Spilsby I don't know that well, but from what I've seen it looks nice. The A16 (busy trunk road) cuts it in half though which might put me off slightly.

Thanks everyone for your replies - might pay Stamford a visit.

You have given me loads to think about.

I liked Grantham when we visited. They had a nice little theatre and some culture.

We live in a village about 5 miles south of Lincoln and it's on the top of a cliff so we'll be all right if the sea does come in this far. .

It's OK, a nice friendly place to live and having lived in London and Harrogate before here it's not the complete backwater I had expected.

We don't have ocado, but Waitrose does deliver and there is a store in both Newark and Lincoln. Newark to London KX takes an hour and a quarter on the train and we live 15 minutes drive from Newark which does have some nice shops.

Lincoln is also growing very rapidly due to the University and so facilities are improving all the time. I've seen some great bands playing at the Engine Shed recently for example.

If you are thinking of a few years hence, Lincolnshire has grammar schools in many areas - and they aren't as difficult to get into as in the South East/North West.
But I couldn't hack the Fens, even though my ancestors come from those parts.

Lincoln, Stamford, nice: Boston OK. We moved to a village near boston, from london, when I was 9...it was fairly boring as a teenager, but looking back it was also a pretty idyllic childhood, cycling off for the whole day, fishing, exploring marshes. I had a paper round and knew all the local farmers because I cycled a 3mile round at 7am every morning. Mind you, my sisters (not me she hastens to add) were sleeping with their 18 year old boyfriends at 14 just so they could get lifts in their cars....

We're going to have a look around at some point during the summer to get a bit more familiar with the area. Lincoln sounds interesting so thats another one for the list.
We quite like the wolds and surrounding areas but have the towns and villages (eg Louth, Horncastle, Spilsby) got enough going on for children? Bit concerned that we would have to rely on the car to do anything.

I would opt for north rather than south Lincs for scenery, the wolds are very pretty, the south is quite bleak (imo!)
As Mrspnut says, Lincoln has benefitted hugely from the university which makes it a bit more happening! Houses cheap. The cliff villages round Lincoln are v nice as is uphill Lincoln, and so a bit more costly.
Further north still, towards Grimsby, is Louth. Nice market town. Quiet though. Barbara Dickson lives there and I think John Shuttleworth (though I stand to be corrected)

Crossed posts a bit there.
Even further up of course is Cleethorpes. I love it.

Definitely uphill lincoln or one of the cliff villages - the other bits of Lincoln are not nearly as nice.

The other advantage to Lincoln is that you get to see the Red Arrows practising loads. It's great driving into the city seeing them loop the loop over the cathedral.

Round Lincoln there is a decent bus service, and uphill is within walking distance to the city centre so kids can manage there.

Our DD1 has a bus pass and there are 2 different bus routes from our village, so a bus every 15 minutes or so.

i grew up in Spilsby. It's changed quite a lot since then though.....

I've lived in the cliff villages for the last year (in a village that a comedian nicked for his name for those that are local) and it's lovely here and i'd recommend it. There is a regular bus service into Lincoln, and it is very friendly here.

I'm moving on Friday nearer to Boston, and will miss being here.

I have friends who are moving out of Louth.....they can't settle there. Have friends who live in Horncastle and like it.

It depends i guess on how much life you want around you. I'm quite happy with very rural (which i have been the last year, three houses on my lane), i don't like the busier towns......