Until recently, Tom and Elisha Cannon were a typical high flying London couple, living in Zone 1 and enjoying the spoils of their City jobs.
But a taste of rural living during the pandemic convinced the couple that there was more to life than their work hard play hard urban existence.
Today the couple live in a rural oast house they have renovated themselves, are first time parents to Otis, aged 16 weeks, and are toasting the success of their own wine business.
Back at the start of 2020 Tom was a portfolio manager for a venture capital firm while Elisha was an in-house lawyer for a hedge fund. They lived in a one bedroom flat in Nine Elms.
As rumours of a national lockdown swirled the couple decided to head down to Tom’s parents’ house in Devon to take a break while they could.
They anticipated staying a few days.
In the event they remained in the west country for six months.
“We just fell in love with being out of the city and close to the sea,” said Tom.
“We started to ask ourselves what we were doing living in a one bedroom flat.”
“We started to ask ourselves what we were doing living in a one bedroom flat and working in jobs which we were not passionate about.”
What Tom was passionate about was wine — not just drinking it but the whole production process.
He had already begun researching the English wine industry, and felt that there was huge potential for producing high quality English rosé.
In 2020, while still in Devon, the couple launched Folc online, selling an award-winning pinot noir-based rosé blend they devised themselves, using English-grown grapes and working with a commercial winery.
When they returned to London they put their Nine Elms flat on the market.
In early 2021 they sold it for £730,000, and spent £1.1 million on a five bedroom, 400 year old oast house set in three acres of grounds in the village of Brenchley, near Tunbridge Wells.
The property was in dire need of some TLC and the couple have put around £200,000 and plenty of elbow grease into upgrading it.
“It still took me a year to feel fully at home here.”
“When we arrived there was no hot water or lighting, so we were having cold baths and candlelit dinners, and sleeping on a mattress on the floor,” said Tom, 33.
Those early months were difficult for Elisha, 34, who continues to work part time as a freelance lawyer as well as working on the business.
“When we first moved here it did feel — in comparison with London, which is very multicultural and busy — isolated,” she said.
“I decided to rent a co-working space in London two days a week, but it still took me a year to feel fully at home here.”
Having a child has really cemented the couple’s place in their new community.
“There are so many groups to join which has made it much easier to make friends,” said Elisha.
Tom, meanwhile, has discovered a previously buried love of gardening. He has also built a natural swimming pond in the grounds, and takes a dip most days.
That, plus parenthood, running the business, which now produces tens of thousands of bottles per year, and caring for their two Bernese mountain dogs, Lupin and Lola, keeps the couple more than occupied.
“London is so close, only 40 minutes on the train, that it is there when we need it,” said Tom.
“But when I go in, once every week or two, I sit on the tube and the people are all grumpy, and nobody looks at anyone else, and I don’t miss that at all.”
