We moved from Brixton/Herne Hill to Norwich about six months before our oldest started school. We’ve been here for just under 3 years and so far we feel we’ve made the right move.
We did think about moving properly rurally but realised that would only work for the 8 or so years we’d have before the boys were teenagers. I think people are right to caution you on this front. As a child I lived in the middle of nowhere in Wales (literally our house and then just fields). It was great! But I’m relieved that our parents moved us into a town when we were approaching teenage years so that we could be independent and catch the train/bus ourselves to the very nearby bigger town and fairly nearby city.
We considered the options quite carefully before deciding to move ourselves. I think you either need to live close enough to London to be able to get into the city within about 30/40 mins (so that is where you go for culture, putting etc), or you need to move to a place that has its own supply of these things. People have mentioned Cambridge, Bristol, Oxford etc.
Norwich offered what we felt we needed for these early years and (hopefully) what the children will need as teenagers. We’re 15 mins walk into the city (which has loads of great shops, restaurants, cafes, art spaces, libraries and public spaces, as well as being full of history), 10 mins walk to the train station for my commute to London, and live in a detached house which is surrounded by green open space (which we could not have afforded in Cambridge, Bristol etc). The city is vibrant and quirky and the university ensures that there is an influx of people from all over so it is not as homogeneous as more rural parts of Norfolk (though obviously it doesn’t benefit from as much cultural diversity as London). We’re 30 minutes from the Norfolk coast.
Everyday living is significantly easier - it’s almost hard to explain how. All the things that need to be done (moving around the city, picking up groceries, getting the boys to school) are just less of a chore. But yes, we do use the car more which obviously has pros and cons.
The compromise is that my twice weekly
commute to London is long (2 hours door to door in the morning, longer in the evening). This was a compromise that I was willing to make (though it wouldn’t suit everyone) so that our family could move to a place which offers us so much.
And there are other downsides - everything moves at a slower pace (doctors’ surgeries, builders and services) and sometimes I have to remember what setting I need to be on.
I have spent most of my adult life living in big cities (London, Paris, Moscow, Bangalore, Singapore), so I am no stranger to them. But I am amazed by how noisy, overcrowded and overwhelming London feels, not to mention how smelly and dirty it is, on my commuting days. I don’t really know how we managed with babies and small children in this space (though they were both born in / just after lockdown so much of their first years/months was spent in Brockwell park!). I definitely breathe a sigh of relief when I get home to Norwich!
We bring the children into London for weekends and to visit friends. I can definitely image them wanting to spend time here when they are older, whether for days out, to study or to work. But I am happy that they will grow up knowing that there is life outside London/a big city.