There are many reasons to move out of London and many ways to choose a new place to live – affordability, proximity to family, commuteability, a desire to be close to the sea.
Alexia Wren-Sillevis and her husband Lennard’s move was driven by rising rents in the capital and decided by a simple typo.
Until last year the couple were living in Dulwich with their two daughters, Marley, 13, and Delphi, six.
The girls were in local schools, Lennard, 40, is assets coordinator for Lucas Films, while Alexia, 45, is an actress turned energy psychologist (@thesacredpsychologist).
Home was a rented three-bedroom cottage. When they moved in, in 2021, their rent was £1,950pcm, which they could manage.
Then it was raised to £2,100, which was also fine. Then, in the autumn, their landlord announced they were raising the rent again, this time to £2,400. “It was just not viable for us,” says Alexia.
She and Lennard began scrambling for an alternative. Homes within the catchment area of the girls’ schools were very scarce and far too expensive, so they started looking further out – from Croydon to Catford.
Then a friend recommended the pretty commuter town of Farnham, Surrey, and they started looking there.
“We were nervous,” says Alexia. “We needed to find somewhere for all of us, and that was going to mean new schools, and I just worried about where we would end up.”
Every evening Alexia settled down to search for suitable properties online.
Tired, she ran a search for Farningham, a village in Kent rather than Farnham and found herself looking at an array of pretty, and surprisingly affordable homes to rent.
“I saw one and my heart just leaped into my chest,” she says. “This is my home.”
She and Lennard went to view the property – having realised their mistake – and in the flesh the three-storey terraced house in the heart of the village was even better than it looked online.
It costs them £1,900pcm and the couple, the girls, and their pets - Claude, a miniature dachshund, and Kurt Russell, an elderly rescue cat – moved in November.
Marley attends school in London (the journey takes 20 minutes) and Delphi is at the local village school which means that new friendships are being forged at the school gates.
The biggest life change for the family, says Alexia, is their proximity to nature. “We are always outside, walking,” she said. “The girls are already fitter, running up hills with Claude, and we are only 20 minutes from the beach.
“We have friends coming to stay with us almost every weekend, and in the evenings we love to just make a fire and settle down in front of it.
“It is a completely different lifestyle to London – and it doesn’t cost anything.”
