Kez and Sebastian Beynon moved with their children Jamie, one, and Chloe, three from a three-bedroom house in Charlton to Wales
(Picture: Handout)A quest for open space and fresh air persuaded Kez and Sebastian Beynon to sell their house in London and move their family almost 200 miles to the wilds of Monmouthshire. The couple, both 38, exchanged their modern three-bedroom house in Charlton, south-east London, for a Victorian converted schoolhouse.
They decided to leave London for the sake of their children. "We really didn’t want to bring up a family in London," explained Kez.
"One of our big concerns was air pollution and the harm it can do. We also wanted to be closer to family, particularly as our parents have both had health scares."
Having thought about the Big Move for years, the couple had pencilled in 2021 as the year that they would quit the capital and move to the home counties. But the pandemic caused them to speed up their plan and change their minds about location.
Kez and Sebastian, who have a three-year-old daughter, Chloe, and one-year-old son, Jamie, both work for London companies, in IT.
Pre-Covid they had assumed that when they left London they would have to quit their jobs too. They had therefore decided to move close to Bristol, with its good tech employment opportunities.
But during the first lockdown they were both sent home from work and began to consider the idea of working remotely. "What Covid has shown is that in our sector, you can work from home," said Kez.
"We started having that conversation with our employers, and we have been really lucky and been able to stay with our current jobs."
They put their semi-detached house on the market last summer and were astounded by the response. They had three offers within a week, and a sale was quickly agreed.
They decided the easiest way to proceed was to sell up, find a house to rent somewhere around Bristol and then look for a new property.
But fate intervened. On a family visit to Sebastian’s parents, who live in Monmouthshire, Wales, the decided to get their eye in by viewing a few houses and fell in love with the very first one they saw.
They sold their London home for £575,000 and paid £675,000 for their home in Wales. The four-bedroom converted Victorian schoolhouse, with gardens overlooking fields of sheep, is two miles from the village of Raglan.
It is around 32 miles from Cardiff, and 40 miles from Bristol, and Raglan has all the basics they need  two pubs, a nursery with a five-acre garden where Chloe and Jamie are having great fun making mud pies and meeting newborn lambs.
Their new home is working perfectly for the family. The old school hall is a big kitchen and dining room. Kez’s office is in an annexe (formerly the school’s lavatory block) and Sebastian has taken over the spare room.
They have longer-term plans to convert another outbuilding into a separate office for Sebastian, and as lockdown eases they are looking forward to being able to explore more of the local area, which includes the Brecon Beacons and Wye Valley, and south Wales’ lovely sandy beaches.
"We just love the scenery and the hills, it is a beautiful part of the country," said Kez. "I have always been a country girl at heart and it is absolutely idyllic. Everyone we have met has been very friendly and welcoming."
