York Minster Towers
(Picture: Alamy Stock Photo)Over the past few years Charlotte Littleboy has lived a life of extremes, moving from one of the world’s great capital cities to a small island before deciding on a middle ground between the two.
Back in 2015 she was living in East Dulwich, close to the Horniman Museum and with the cafes and boutiques of Lordship Lane up the road.
Then her husband Mark was offered a dream job on the Channel Islands.
In 2015 the family decamped to Jersey, for a life of hanging out on the beach and admiring the yachts in the marina.
Their original plan was to stay a few years, and then go home to their four-bedroom house.
But, after seven years living on a small island with a population of just over 100,000 people, the couple have decided against a return.
“We had always expected to go back to London after Jersey,” said Charlotte, 45.
“It almost took us by surprise when we realised we didn’t actually want to.”
The couple have four children between them – the youngest is six the eldest is at university – and when Mark, 48, was offered a great job with the Jersey government, they saw it as a great chance to step off the London treadmill for a while.
“Financially London was quite pressurising for us, we thought it would be nice to live by the sea for a bit, and it seemed like a bit of an adventure,” said Charlotte, who also found a government job on the island.
They rented out their East Dulwich house and for the next few years rented a series of homes. Clearly there were some fantastic lifestyle benefits — the perfect beaches, the chance to try out rural living without committing to it, the clean air, safe environment, and lovely schools for the children. They also made strong friendships.
However, as their children grew up the couple felt concerned about the lack of job opportunity on the island, and lack of both culture and diversity compared to London. Jersey’s house prices are also prohibitively high.
During the pandemic the island closed its borders. “It meant that we didn’t see family for the best part of two years, and when the borders opened the cost of travelling to the mainland went up,” said Charlotte. “It was costing the best part of £1,000 for us to get home to see the grandparents.”
However, the prospect of a return to London had also lost its shine. “London is very high energy, and there is so much we love about it, but we weren’t sure we were energetic enough for it,” said Charlotte. “It felt daunting to go back to a city where your car might get broken into — there is almost no crime on Jersey — and there were issues like air pollution too. Leaving has been an emotional wrench for me, but it also felt like the right thing.”
Having found country living in Jersey “very, very hard work” the couple decided that a smaller city was the answer. They settled on York because it is close to Mark’s family and an easy commute back to London and moved in January. Their home in Dulwich is now on the market for £950,000 with Roy Brooks estate agents. They are renting a house in the York suburbs while they wait for it to sell so they can start house hunting for a property large enough for the six of them.
“I love the city and the schools are fantastic,” said Charlotte. “My son has special needs and the schools have been wonderful with him.”
While the children settle in at their new schools the couple are making their own efforts to find friends in their newly adopted city. Charlotte, who continues to work remotely for the Jersey government, has joined a choir, while Mark plans to join a running club. They are also making use of York’s theatre, museums, and music scene.
Proximity to the North Yorkshire Moors and Yorkshire Dales is an added attraction for the couple, both keen walkers, although less so for their children, who prefer their computers to the great outdoors. “The good thing is that there are actually more things to distract them from their screens in York than there were in Jersey,” said Charlotte. “We could do something new every weekend for a year, all within an hour and a half’s drive.”
