Almost 70,000 households moved out of London last year and Harriet Minter was one of them.
Six months later Harriet is on her way back home, with a cautionary tale about the realities of moving to a charming historic cottage in a delightful market town — particularly if you are doing so with only an over-anxious rescue dog for company.
Like so many of us, Minter began seriously thinking about moving out during the pandemic.
She had split up with her boyfriend, turned 40 and felt at a crossroads.
“It was a strange time, London felt really dead — I couldn’t get anyone to go out any more and I actually felt a bit lonely,” she says.
Back then Minter was living in a one-bedroom flat in Fulham, which she had bought in 2017, and she realised she could rent it out and use the money to rent a place in the country. “I did a lot of scrolling through house porn every night, because I didn’t really know where
I wanted to be apart from it needed to be commutable, and ideally somewhere I knew someone,” she says.
Eventually she settled on Petworth, West Sussex, because a friend had moved there and was raving about it.
Trains to London from Pulborough, four miles away, take an hour and 20 minutes but Minter wasn’t too concerned — she was already working from home, as a journalist and broadcaster, so getting to an office wasn’t a massive issue.
“It looked exactly like the cottage in The Holiday, and that was it.”
The deal was sealed when Minter, now 42, found a gorgeous Grade II-listed cottage in a village just outside Petworth.
“It looked exactly like the cottage in The Holiday, and that was it,” she says.
She and Blue, a Staffordshire terrier, set off on their rom-com inspired adventure in June.
Unfortunately the two-bedroom cottage, while undeniably very pretty, turned out to be a disaster.
Minter arrived to discover that the cooker didn’t work and neither did the fridge — a major problem since she has type one diabetes and her insulin needs to be kept refrigerated.
The shower didn’t work, neither did one of the two toilets and the oil tank in the garden was so overgrown it was impossible to get it refilled.
She had no broadband and it took weeks to get it working, and the boiler broke down regularly.
The cost of renting this litany of problems? £1,600pcm.
Minter was just getting on top of her domestic problems when another crisis struck — she put her back out, requiring hospital treatment. Being incapacitated brought home to her how far away she was from family and friends, let alone the nearest hospital (in Worthing).
On the flip-side there were things Minter loved about the country, once she had recovered.
“I felt a lot healthier, and a lot calmer,” she says. “I was also a lot more creative, and did more work."
At the point at which I moved out of London I had been there almost 20 years, and you stop noticing things like background noise and pollution. When I moved out to the countryside I could feel how clean the air was and when I went to bed at night there was no noise and I slept better.”
Minter felt the benefit of being in nature every day, and being able to make regular trips to the south coast.
“The only thing about this is that on a really practical level my step count went through the floor,” she says. “Yes, I went for walks. But you have to drive everywhere else.”
"The first time she went out she met a toad and came running back into the house."
Minter also has no complaints about Petworth.
“It is beautiful, delightful and you can have all the coffee and home-made bread you like,” she says.
The locals were hearteningly friendly and helpful — the local pub let her use its shower when hers wasn’t working, and when she accidentally ordered three tons of logs for the wood burner, her neighbour volunteered to shift it for her.
Poor Blue, however, was not enjoying the country life experience. Already timid and a little needy, she found living in a larger home overwhelming.
“In the flat she could really see where I was all the time,” says Minter.
“In the cottage I would go into another room, and she didn’t like it. I had looked for a property with a garden because I thought she would love it. The first time she went out she met a toad and came running back into the house, and that was it. She wouldn’t go out again unless I went with her.”
Climbing stairs while suffering from arthritis also didn’t thrill Blue, who is 12, and she didn’t enjoy being able to go for lots of long country walks either.
“In London she knew everyone — the neighbours, the dogs in the park,” says Minter.
“Here she just hated the change of routine and got anxious if I had to go out — I came home once and heard her howling from inside, which she had never done before.”
Simultaneously, several of Minter’s clients started requiring her presence in the office, so she ended up doing far more commuting than she had anticipated, and had to hire a dogsitter to keep Blue company.
"We turn this debate into a town-versus-country thing, but I think it is a family-versus-single thing."
Then, in October, Minter’s London tenant accidentally flooded her flat and moved out, leaving Minter to organise a big insurance claim and renovation work remotely. By Christmas, she’d had enough.
Minter had been welcomed by locals, but new friends couldn’t compare to her long-established friend family back in London. “As well as friends, the things that I have missed have been the culture and the opportunities you have in London, and I also miss people, the buzz of having people around me all the time,” she says.
She has given notice on the cottage and will be back in London this month, staying with a friend until renovation of her flat is completed in March.
What Minter will be taking home from her rural (mis)adventure is that anybody considering a similar move needs to be willing to work hard at building a new network of friends, particularly if they are going it alone.
“When I moved I had my, ‘I’m a single woman and I can accomplish anything’ hat on,” she says.
“What I learnt was that accomplishing everything was very hard. We turn this debate into a town-versus-country thing, but I think it is a family-versus-single thing.”
