Moving to Winchcombe?

Well, we didn't move to Winchcombe, or any where else, for that matter!
We did spend quite a lot of time looking at the housing market there, encouraged by all your helpful information, but we found that all the properties for sale were either too big/expensive, too far out of town for non-drivers, or very old properties right in the middle and likely to be too tricky for ageing owners.
We did hear of another couple who managed to buy in the town, after looking for many months, only because they heard from a resident that a house was going to come on the market, raced to the estate agents and snaffled it before it went public. So a lot of competition for what there is, apparently. Or there was then, two years ago.
So we are accepting that that ship has sailed and settling down in our really very convenient house, and looking to spend a bit of money on making it more comfortable for our (very) old age.
Another factor, we now realise, is that Mr G's knees have given up, so that living close to good walking country would be quite frustrating now. So maybe a blessing in disguise.
Re the climate in the Cotswolds: my mother, who came from Shipton under Wychwood, used to say that people (probably she meant my father's family, who are from Lancashire) always talked enviously about the Cotswolds being nice and warm. Her exasperated reply was always that it was actually cold, bleak and wet outside the summer months. So what you say, Claremont, rings true.
So, sorry, Annette59, we can't be very helpful! hope you have better luck than us.

Oreo

Sounds nice there, but I have a neighbour who comes from Gloucestershire and she says it’t the wettest place on God’s green earth.😂
Something to think about?

Winters are cold, windy and foggy. Friends moved to the Cotswolds last year, in their 80s. They are moving back to the South Coast before the winter. Due to above, and also due to isolation- just too remote.

I was going to add my piece but I see so many of you are familiar with the area. I used to live in Kineton and we spent Sundays visiting all the little villages round about. Winchcombe is steeped in history, you are very fortunate to be able to consider living there.

Granva

Thank you, Dickens in particular, and everyone who has replied. A lot of food for thought.

We might, of course, end up staying where we are and spending money on this house. It’s in a good position for getting older, bus into town goes past the door, supermarket 5 minutes walk away, trains to Birmingham, countryside outside our back gate, manageable garden; oh dear!

There's something to be said about what you know.
The grass isn't always greener elsewhere.
Where you live now sounds lovely, I'd stay put .
One day you might not be so active and your present home would be the best for you. You have a lot to think about.
Good Luck in what you decide.

Dickens

Frizzywizzy

Hi Granva,
I know Winchcombe pretty well and we tried very hard to buy a house there. Sadly, we couldn’t sell our house in time so lost the house we were after. Anyway, I think Winchcombe is a super town, with beautiful walks, homes and friendly people. If you are looking in this area, I’d also recommend that you consider Prestbury. Look along the Burgage area, Lake Street and Shaw Green Lane. Lovely walks from there too, around the Racecourse or up Cleeve Hill. There are very friendly locals in Prestbury and it’s only a short walk, bike ride or bus journey to the centre of Cheltenham and all the facilities that has to offer.
Best wishes on your move.

... I'd recommend Prestbury too!

Just looking through this thread again, from 2 years ago it reminds me that I read an online article about Prestbury which was interesting.It says it’s the most haunted village in England as there are so many stories and sightings!👻
Just google Prestbury UK haunted village if you’re interested.

I’ve just found this old thread and was wondering if you’d managed to move to Winchcombe? I’m considering a move there myself in the near future and would be interested to hear how you’re finding it.

Yangste1007

Dickens

Yangste1007

There is also a florist, hardware shop, two excellent beauty salons, a good hairdresser, optician, dental surgery, bakers, a really good gift shop which also sells books and a dog grooming business. The nearest railway station with good direct service to London is Evesham. You can get to Birmingham but have to change. We don't bother with Cheltenham railway as it is more expensive and takes longer. We love it here.

Do you know what's happening to the Post Office service - whether it's open or not?

I keep getting conflicting information from residents, and I haven't been able to go and find out for myself!

No, I don't know. The Post Office have been advertising for someone to take it over. I think it's a franchise so whether it'll end up being moved again is anyone's guess. We use Broadway or Gotherington at the moment.

Sorry, when I said I didn't know I meant I don't know what's happening. It's definitely not open in Morrisons.

Dickens

Yangste1007

There is also a florist, hardware shop, two excellent beauty salons, a good hairdresser, optician, dental surgery, bakers, a really good gift shop which also sells books and a dog grooming business. The nearest railway station with good direct service to London is Evesham. You can get to Birmingham but have to change. We don't bother with Cheltenham railway as it is more expensive and takes longer. We love it here.

Do you know what's happening to the Post Office service - whether it's open or not?

I keep getting conflicting information from residents, and I haven't been able to go and find out for myself!

No, I don't know. The Post Office have been advertising for someone to take it over. I think it's a franchise so whether it'll end up being moved again is anyone's guess. We use Broadway or Gotherington at the moment.

But they're all rather hilly!

I'd still prefer Gloucestershire .....

Monmouthshire and Herefordshire are lovely too 🙂

Granva

madeleine45 thank you for your detailed and thoughtful post. We have lived in the same house for 43 years, so the opposite of your experiences! We do plan to go and stay and see what Winchcombe looks/feels like on a wet November Monday, or February for that matter.
bijou Yes, we have considered the prospect of being widowed (widower-ed?) and also of being much less able than we are now. It will affect what kind of house and garden we look for.
And thank you, all you Winchcombe residents, for all the detail you have provided. It is encouraging that you all seem to like living there, despite recent changes.

I think you may want to consider somewhere else now to move to Granva 😁
The East of the country is drier and house prices cheaper too.

Bijou

I watch Bargain Hunt and often there are retiring couples moving to large properties with a lot of garden but they don’t consider that one may be left alone and/or have to give up driving. I live in a village. We used to have bakers butcher etc now even the banks in nearest town are closed. Used to be buses to many towns now only one to one town daily. The surgery is overwhelmed. Have to wait two weeks even to get an appointment. Hospitals thirty miles away. All this applies to small towns all over the country.

Do you mean '*Escape to the Country?*

... good luck, with whatever you decide!

madeleine45 thank you for your detailed and thoughtful post. We have lived in the same house for 43 years, so the opposite of your experiences! We do plan to go and stay and see what Winchcombe looks/feels like on a wet November Monday, or February for that matter.
bijou Yes, we have considered the prospect of being widowed (widower-ed?) and also of being much less able than we are now. It will affect what kind of house and garden we look for.
And thank you, all you Winchcombe residents, for all the detail you have provided. It is encouraging that you all seem to like living there, despite recent changes.

Bijou

I watch Bargain Hunt and often there are retiring couples moving to large properties with a lot of garden but they don’t consider that one may be left alone and/or have to give up driving. I live in a village. We used to have bakers butcher etc now even the banks in nearest town are closed. Used to be buses to many towns now only one to one town daily. The surgery is overwhelmed. Have to wait two weeks even to get an appointment. Hospitals thirty miles away. All this applies to small towns all over the country.

All so very true, Bijou.

The continuing loss of amenities and shops in towns and villages effectively means that unless you are quite active, and / or drive - you can become very isolated. If you cannot get to the supermarkets or other large outlets then shopping online is the only alternative.

I understand 'changing times' - it's not a new thing, but I'm not convinced that losing local shops is a good change, nor even necessarily inevitable. But if local councils are starved of cash and have to recoup through various measures including high rents to business premises, then the local baker and butcher will obviously eventually disappear.

In Winchcombe people do use these shops - because they are there and a short walking distance for very many, in spite of the fact that people also shop online. So I'm not convinced that online-shopping is the sole culprit for the slow death of towns and villages.

To me it appears that the infrastructure is slowly dying because money is being sucked out of the economy via continuing spending cuts (and there's more to come apparently).

My late grandmother who lived in a very small village in Lincolnshire used to walk to the butcher, baker and small grocery store virtually every day - in spite of being in her 80s - as did other elderly people. It not only kept the village alive, it possibly contributed to their wellbeing. Because the village thrived, younger people moved there - and because there was a good bus service, it didn't matter if they didn't have a car; they actually used to catch a bus to go to work.

I visited the village a while back, and it has quite simply, died. Most of the shops have gone, the local pub looks like it's not far from its demise, the whole place has an air of neglect and decay. There are a lot of cars - because the bus service was axed decades ago. What is happening (according to the remaining residents) is that small businesses - like a car-repair 'garage' for example, are opening up and in fairly quick succession, closing down again. The local church and church yard has had to be closed because structurally it needs some maintenance, but that's unaffordable, the grass is overgrown, the headstones are crumbling behind the locked gates. I shall not return.

I know that times change, but I'm not sure it was meant to be quite like this.

I watch Bargain Hunt and often there are retiring couples moving to large properties with a lot of garden but they don’t consider that one may be left alone and/or have to give up driving. I live in a village. We used to have bakers butcher etc now even the banks in nearest town are closed. Used to be buses to many towns now only one to one town daily. The surgery is overwhelmed. Have to wait two weeks even to get an appointment. Hospitals thirty miles away. All this applies to small towns all over the country.

Taka

Dickens

Yangste1007

There is also a florist, hardware shop, two excellent beauty salons, a good hairdresser, optician, dental surgery, bakers, a really good gift shop which also sells books and a dog grooming business. The nearest railway station with good direct service to London is Evesham. You can get to Birmingham but have to change. We don't bother with Cheltenham railway as it is more expensive and takes longer. We love it here.

Do you know what's happening to the Post Office service - whether it's open or not?

I keep getting conflicting information from residents, and I haven't been able to go and find out for myself!

The Post Office is still closed and nobody seems to know if or when it will reopen. The nearest PO is in Alderton, a few minutes drive away.

👍👍

Dickens

Yangste1007

There is also a florist, hardware shop, two excellent beauty salons, a good hairdresser, optician, dental surgery, bakers, a really good gift shop which also sells books and a dog grooming business. The nearest railway station with good direct service to London is Evesham. You can get to Birmingham but have to change. We don't bother with Cheltenham railway as it is more expensive and takes longer. We love it here.

Do you know what's happening to the Post Office service - whether it's open or not?

I keep getting conflicting information from residents, and I haven't been able to go and find out for myself!

The Post Office is still closed and nobody seems to know if or when it will reopen. The nearest PO is in Alderton, a few minutes drive away.

DrWatson

For Granva, yes, far worse places than the Cotswolds, and that town is OK, though as Dickens says (like so many places now!) not quite as good as it was. Cheltenham is OK, and bits of Gloucester are too, though look closer and I think you'll see rather too many run-down bits. Did someone say Tewkesbury? Careful, likely to be under water every other year?! Moreton in Marsh is OK (got trains too, in a limited way), but as some have said, swerve Broadway and Bourton, both get jampacked with tourists. Stay somewhere there for a week or two, travel around, get a better feel for things?

Personally, I'd sooner move to somewhere at or close to a coast, as we like the sea, Somerset, East Anglia, or most of the S Coast could be considered, though Cornwall is too far, and the hospital ratings have to be considered too these days! We visited Ludlow and Shrewsbury last year, both have lots of attractions, (& nowhere near sea!) BUT we heard that the hospital trust there is just hopeless!

The truth is DrWatson, the whole nation is now showing its raggedly bits here and there.

Austerity, Brexit, the Pandemic - have all taken their financial toll. The "tough decisions" that government takes doesn't only affect people's personal income / benefits - those cuts mean services like road sweeping, potholes, street planting, etc, get pared down to the very basics. Amenities - like public toilets, get closed because they're too expensive to maintain... desperate people then start peeing up against the nearest wall. Here in Winchcombe, the main thoroughfare at one point was littered with debris - dust, dirt, discarded confectionary packaging; the planters were left bare and then become receptacles for rubbish. Gloucester Street - when it rains - floods over because the drains are blocked with debris and straw from the passing farm vehicles which blocks the drains. Street signs get defaced with graffiti which is only removed when the residents decide to do something about it. Low-level crime and anti-social behaviour proliferates because there's no police around to stop it - our community police have gone.

And gradually the decline shows, continues and becomes a permanent fixture. But it's not just Winchcombe, it is happening everywhere. And not just in the UK either.

The solution is obvious, but I'm not going to turn this thread into a political debate, so I'll just leave it at that.

But it is very depressing and soul destroying to watch the slow decay and decline.

For Granva, yes, far worse places than the Cotswolds, and that town is OK, though as Dickens says (like so many places now!) not quite as good as it was. Cheltenham is OK, and bits of Gloucester are too, though look closer and I think you'll see rather too many run-down bits. Did someone say Tewkesbury? Careful, likely to be under water every other year?! Moreton in Marsh is OK (got trains too, in a limited way), but as some have said, swerve Broadway and Bourton, both get jampacked with tourists. Stay somewhere there for a week or two, travel around, get a better feel for things?

Personally, I'd sooner move to somewhere at or close to a coast, as we like the sea, Somerset, East Anglia, or most of the S Coast could be considered, though Cornwall is too far, and the hospital ratings have to be considered too these days! We visited Ludlow and Shrewsbury last year, both have lots of attractions, (& nowhere near sea!) BUT we heard that the hospital trust there is just hopeless!

I have moved 19 times as an adult and 6 as a child and not to do with the forces, So I pass on the tips that I think might help . This is a good time to go and do b and b or rent a flat or something for a couple of weeks. Looking at somewhere when it is miserable weather and not a holiday gives you a far better idea of what it is like to live there rather than be a visitor. You can also sit down now and write a list of the things that you do or that mean a lot to you, so you may be a gardener, sing in a choir, go walking etc. If you go to the local library there they will have up to date information about all sorts of societies, so you will find out what is available in your new area. Wander about and look at the gardens, this will tell you what sort of soil is the norm there and you will see the various types of gardens round about. Check out how many different doctors surgeries there are and the hospital. If you belong to something like WI or Rotary contact the branch in the new area and get some up to date ideas from them. Think of the worse scenario and look at how many and what sort of care homes etc are about and what reputation the local hospital has. Then think of the area you want to live in and the things that you would probably do regularly. So for instance how far is the nearest swimming pool and could you get to it easily by bus. So go and stay with your list of things to check up on, notice which are the very busy roads in the area and is there one area where you only have one possible way out say over a river bridge. If you have no choice then should there be major roadworks you would be stuck getting in and out of that road. Look at some old local papers and get the present one sent to you to where you live now. That local news will tell you what is going on and also you will see the pattern of which areas seem to get the most problems at night, noise or disturbance etc and other areas will appeal to you more. Look in the local council offices and check up if there are plans to do a lot more building in an area that now seems pleasant. Come home and have chance to think about what you found. Then have another visit at perhaps February as a rather bleak and cold month. Once you have decided on roughly the area you would hope to buy somewhere then look at costs , such as bus cost into the centre, parking areas, ease of shopping areas to visit etc. The next thing I would say is to do what we did. When you find a place that seems to be a possibly buy, draw the house to scale on grid paper, then cut out shapes of your furniture and move it about and work out what will go where. A lot easier than moving the actual furniture!! I am sure that once you start looking you will think of all sorts of other things you might want to check up on. At the worst you will have spent a smallish amount checking it out , and if you decide it is not what you thought it was you will have found out before you actually move. Then you may decide to remain in the area you live in now but perhaps find a better house there, or you will then have a good idea as to the sort of area you are looking for. But the first thing to do now before anything else, is each of you individually write a note to yourself to say why you want to move and what you hope for etc. Close that up and then when you move or when you have a horrible day, look at your leter and remind yourself why and what you are looking for. I wish you all the very best

Yangste1007

There is also a florist, hardware shop, two excellent beauty salons, a good hairdresser, optician, dental surgery, bakers, a really good gift shop which also sells books and a dog grooming business. The nearest railway station with good direct service to London is Evesham. You can get to Birmingham but have to change. We don't bother with Cheltenham railway as it is more expensive and takes longer. We love it here.

Do you know what's happening to the Post Office service - whether it's open or not?

I keep getting conflicting information from residents, and I haven't been able to go and find out for myself!

There is also a florist, hardware shop, two excellent beauty salons, a good hairdresser, optician, dental surgery, bakers, a really good gift shop which also sells books and a dog grooming business. The nearest railway station with good direct service to London is Evesham. You can get to Birmingham but have to change. We don't bother with Cheltenham railway as it is more expensive and takes longer. We love it here.

We live in Winchcombe and have done for the last 7 years. No regrets at all. There are 4 pubs, 2 restaurants, several coffee shops, a butcher and an excellent deli. There is a good community feeling and a thriving u3a. It’s a centre for walking and cycling in the glorious countryside all around. Highly recommended.

Thank you, Dickens in particular, and everyone who has replied. A lot of food for thought.

We might, of course, end up staying where we are and spending money on this house. It’s in a good position for getting older, bus into town goes past the door, supermarket 5 minutes walk away, trains to Birmingham, countryside outside our back gate, manageable garden; oh dear!