Divorcing with 3 kids in London - wanting to move to the countryside

[mamatothreebunnies]

Living in London with 3 kids and my soon to be ex-h, and I’ve always dreamt of living in the country, perhaps on a farm. My eldest also had the same dream (I’ve never told her mine so she just naturally is drawn to that life) - and I think the divorce is an opportunity for me to restart my life. I couldn’t afford to live in London and maintain the same lifestyle we currently have on his salary and I earn very minimal. With the house sale and other assets I could live somewhere rural but need help with location ideas.

need somewhere within 2 hours of London
Green and rural
close to a city or town with nice shops and restaurant
ideally good schools etc

please can anyone help? I’m not great with England geography.

That is an awful lot of change for your kids to deal with in a short space of time. Dad moving out and then moving far away from school and friends. Is such a drastic move really in their best interest?

Leicestershire has some pretty countryside, town and villages too. Just over the hour on a very regular train service to London. Get a biggish garden and have a few chickens

Schools?
Your job?

Rural life is great for kids up until the age of about 11. Then when you want to start having independence as a teenager, going round to your mates houses when you want, after school, going out with friends in the evening, etc - it then becomes rubbish. You're isolated and very dependent on parent availability to take you anywhere. I lived in a village growing up and all my friends as a teenager were in other villages. Bus service not great. I was very pleased to move away to Uni when I really did start enjoying life

There's rural and rural.

My ExH grew up in a house with three other houses nearby and nothing else for miles just fields.

There's something to be said for being in a village at least as there will be other houses?

I live on the outskirts of a small town in the fens. It's got two primary schools and a secondary so kids can walk to school.

I like the lifestyle here but a lot of the teens have very little to do and there's a big drug problem.

Depending on how rural you want, you should consider whether the property / town / village has the following:

• internet coverage, especially if you wfh
• mains water, gas, sewage (otherwise you're at the mercy of spring water, bottled gas and septic tanks)
• bus service or similar for the kids as they grow older
• what it's like in winter - i.e. does it snow, do they grit the roads etc. All considerations due to driving everywhere and what kind of car you need

Look at Stroud in Gloucestershire. It is a lively ( slightly hippy) market town with extremely beautiful surroundings villages and countryside. There are good state schools ( including grammar schools if that is what you want).

To be honest I don't think it would be wise to go straight into farming without any experience. It is a hard and physical life and not easy to make a go of it ( unless you are Jeremy Clarkson). Maybe start off with somewhere with a small bit of land where you can keep chickens, grow veg and have your dog as a hobby.

Stroud is also on a mainline railway station into London

There's this in Downham market.

Rural, on train line to London.
No idea about schools though

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/150159473

The reason I have to move out of London is because I cannot afford to house us in a 4 bed house in London on my salary. And since I’m planning on moving out, I just wanted to gage the possibility of living a rural lifestyle. Perhaps I wasn’t too clear on what I wanted. But yes sounds like I need to be in a village town, as would be too quiet to be so secluded.

their father travels away 80% of his time so he won’t be on any regular meet ups and when he’s here I’m happy to drive the kids or train down to London.

I just want us to be somewhere with a small and lovely community, had the basic necessities that we need like restaurants, shops, cinema etc for the kids but with pretty greenery. Maybe we don’t need a farm, but some piece of green land next to us for our future dog. Nice walks and natural places within driving distance for us to do on weekends.

I’m not in a great place mentally and dreaming of the life I may want to build in future. Please don’t be mean to me

What about your children's rights to a relationship with their Dad? Do you really want them to be spending hours and hours of their weekends travelling? And I think your STBXH could possibly take you to court to stop you taking the children away.

Hampshire (outside Winchester) or Wiltshire (outside Salisbury) might tick your boxes?

OP you definitely don't want a farm - I've done that and the maintenance is never ending. I think you want a large village or small town with a primary school where your dc will make friends and then presumably most from that area will go on to the same secondary. You don't need land for your dog. A garden will do and then parks, countryside, beach will make the bulk of your walks

Look at Bicester and the surrounding villages too. Bicester has a good rail link to London and lots of new housing in your price range. Not sure what the schools are like though.

The problem is that what you want is contradictory "small and lovely community, had the basic necessities that we need like restaurants, shops, cinema etc for the kids but with pretty greenery"
A small and lovely community usually isn't near many shops/cinemas etc. So you can have a small community with not many facilities you say you need or you can have the facilities but accept you will be in a larger town.
Market towns may fit the bill as a halfway compromise but you will still need to travel for some of what you want.

Hi OP, I wonder if you might get nicer responses if you post again without the farm dream and divorce bit.

Sounds as if you want a nice town or village, with amenities and a nice pace of life. There are lots of those within 2 hours of London.

How about a village outside Peterborough? That’s within 2 hrs on a direct train, and £500k should buy you a decent house.

I would spend a few hours on RightMove and see where that takes you. Best of luck

Canterbury or surrounding areas. Sevenoaks. You can visit a lot of farms and both have good rail links to London.

If you consider the cinema a 'basic necessity' OP you aren't suited to rural life. There's likely to be nothing except for maybe a corner shop for miles around.

As PP said a small town or village will be better with access to countryside. There are lots of these.

What do you mean by 2 hours to London? If you mean the train, you can basically move to Yorkshire.

Rural living is not idyllic. And you probably aren't cut out for it if you regard a cinema as a 'basic' necessity.

I would suggest you really take some time to think this through and don't make any knee-jerk decisions. Pick a few towns or cities which have easily accessible countryside (Norwich, Cambridge, York, Leeds) and go and visit them. Get a better feel for the UK and the differences between the regions. Then slowly start narrowing down what you want.

@mamatothreebunnies good luck with your divorce! I hope you and your bunnies have lighter times ahead.

I know sod all about rural living, this came up in trending but I loved the idea of somewhere rural and for the experience I've booked a couple of rural air b&bs over the holidays. (About 400 quid for a week both times in Yorkshire and North Wales.)
It was fun for a few days but then my eldest was bored feckless.
He found some local kids in the nearest village hanging out in their school, from about aged 7-21 because when my dp went to collect us (small drive away from air b&b) from playing outside the older kids/young men kicked a ball to him presuming he'd just come to hang out, didn't realise he was a dad 😂
It was lovely and friendly and seemed very innocent however with the lack of opportunity for older teens/young adults to meet others I was naturally worried about how that could play out. It's not something I've experienced before, 21 year olds playing footie with small kids unless they're uncles or brothers. It seemed a unnatural friendship group.
And the group was so sweet, don't get me wrong I'm just a suspicious worrier when it comes to child safety.
(They also had no problems me just sitting there watching dc play football, very welcoming, all seemed happy) but my dc who is used to towns and cities was bored very quickly. He was about 8 I think when we went away rurally for the first time.
Anyway it was a lovely experience but also confirmed that rural wasn't for us, so if you can have a look at a break somewhere rural and can afford it, I'd definitely do that, go check out some village or valley life.
You may thrive and love it, may be bored, but if you can, give it a whirl x

I live in a village called Tisbury, 25 minutes west of Salisbury, very rural, but has the huge benefit of being on the main Exeter to Waterloo line, so you can be in London inside 2 hours with 2 services stopping per hour.

15 minutes to Salisbury one way, Gillingham the other and easy access to everything east and west and north by changing at Salisbury.

Great for older teens as they can really easily pop into town and back without being dependent on us for lifts.

So that's my vote.

Live in Norfolk, 1.75 hours to London via good trains at Diss. Good schools in towns like Wymondham. Norwich is close at hand (1/2 hour by car). Lovely rural villages. Look on rightmove set 10 miles from Wymondham and look through. Coast is 1/2 an hour at its closest and within one hour you are at some very fine beeches indeed. Driving to London at the weekends is c 2.5 hours

I would be careful about the timing as you are moving schools for your eldest. Check about school rolls/availability and when you would need to apply. In my county nearly all secondary schools are full and if you moved mid-year you would be stuck. Plus if you are rural you have to ensure they could get there.

I lived semi-rural on the edge of a small town and it was really lovely. I did have to drive everywhere and there were no pavements or street lights and I was a single parent with small dc like you. I was fine with it but some people might have found it quite isolating eg you don’t see any neighbours, hard for delivery drivers, nowhere to walk to safely. There are things to consider you might not have thought of that make life with children a little bit more difficult. This was in south Wales btw where there are lots of lovely villages although that would be too far out of London for you.

Not much help but just to say, a few people have suggested places in Kent - Sevenoaks etc. Kent is lovely with good links to London, but they have the grammar school system there. This is worth bearing in mind especially as you have a 10yo, as passing the 11+ might be hard without the usual coaching that kids in Kent and the surrounding areas go through, often from year 4 on. Whether this matters or not will depend on your children and what the other non-grammar schools are like in the particular part of Kent you might look at, but it would be something to check out before considering a move there.

Stroud would really work well for you then!