Moving out of London takes courage. Natasha and Tom Marshall had to steel themselves to say goodbye to their comfort zone once but twice. They started out by testing out the commuter waters by exchanging a Zone 1 flat for a cottage in a Kent commuter town, then took a real leap into the unknown and decamped to a village in rural Northamptonshire.
The couple’s final London home was a “lovely but absolutely tiny” rented flat in Clerkenwell. But they had long been aware that they couldn’t even afford to buy their own flat, let alone something larger and more future proofed.
So, in 2013, they took the commuting plunge by buying a three-bedroom cottage in the Kent town of Edenbridge. They picked it for two straightforward reasons. The commute to London, where Natasha worked as a solicitor, was easy. And they could afford it. The cottage cost them circa £280,000.
“We loved the countryside, we were quite close to Tunbridge Wells, and we really enjoyed living there,” said Natasha, 36. “Southern Railways was a bit of a nightmare, but when the trains were working properly it was not a difficult commute.”
The problem was that neither Natasha or Tom, 39, has any strong family connection to Kent. And when they started thinking about having children they also started thinking about how nice it would be to be closer to their own parents.
Natasha’s family is in the Midlands, and Tom’s were in Kent. Northamptonshire seemed like the ideal middle ground.
With an entire county to choose from the couple had a wide search area. All they really wanted was to be close to a commuter station so that Natasha could get to the office — Tom was a property manager and worked from home or on site most of the time — and a house with character.
“It wasn’t as easy as it sounds because our budget was £650,000 maximum, and we weren’t going to be in a position to do a lot of work,” said Natasha.
Eventually they found the perfect home, a four-bedroom 17th century stone farmhouse in Newnham, just south of Daventry. They sold their Kent cottage for just over £350,000 and spent circa £650,000 on the house in 2018.
There have been plenty of changes since then. The couple now have three children Wilfred, four, Clementine, two, and Philippa, six months, plus two cats, and a Cavapoo called Kipling.
Tom’s parents relocated to Northamptonshire to be close to the grandchildren, and Tom has started his own business, working as a property finder helping others make the move too (www.thomaswilliampropertyfinders.co.uk). Natasha is currently on maternity leave but will be going back to work in the autumn, spending one to two days per week in London and the rest of the time at home.
“When we visit friends in London, we see what a great place it can be to bring up a family with everything on the doorstep,” said Natasha. “But that is providing you can afford to live there. And we had always envisioned a bit more of a rural upbringing for the children, a bit more space, and the pollution of London is something that would have worried about.
“Obviously when the trains are playing up and I get thrown off the train a stop early in Northampton I think: “Why did we move so far away?” But with the advent of remote working those moments have been few and far between.”
One worry Natasha had before moving to Newnham was that village life would be exceptionally sleepy and that the residents would all be retirees. “That is not the case at all,” she said. “Our neighbours are older but there are also quite a lot of young families here, some of whom moved out of London like us. We have been able to make a lovely social network.”
