Advice on living in Norfolk please

Good Morning !

Im interested in any comments from people living in Norfolk as DH and I are planning a move there this year. We've done our research and have spent several holidays in and around the area narrowing down our search. We had thought about Lincolnshire but have now ruled that out unless the perfect house appears on the market LOL

We currently live in Essex ( sort of happened by default some 35 years ago when we left the army !) and its worked for us as I worked in London or internationally , so transport links were crucial. Super early retirement will mean that we can now look at a more rural location for our 'forever' home.

It will mean moving away from both our DD's, their families and our grandchildren which will be a wrench but we feel that this last phase of our lives we need to consider what we want a little more than usual. We have lived , loved and supported our DDs and put them first our whole lives - and rightly so.

But its time for a change, so I am really interested in any comments.

Friends from here in the East Midlands were pining to go back to Norwich a couple of years ago and have now settle Costessey which they absolutely love. Her art work has taken off and she is selling and exhibiting locally and he has picked up where he left off here with the Air Cadets - they say their social life is excellent and she very much enjoys the shops. They love their new house there too.

I am over the border in Suffolk, but have family near Great Yarmouth. I would avoid that area - the hospital The James Paget at Gorleston does not have a good reputation, and although the beaches are lovely, the towns are not.

I like Norwich, lots of good individual shops, quite a lively place with the university etc and an airport, theatres, and I understand their hosipital is very good (at least compared to Gorleston). Easy access to The Broads.

We also like the area around Sheringham/Holt etc but quiet in winter and houses quite expensive.

I would choose to be on outskirts of Norwich as many pretty villages are very dead in winter, and hardly any transport.

My sister lives in Norfolk and has moved around a bit, but now lives in Swaffham which is a little market town. Has all the facilities, not too far from Norwich , plenty of lovely countryside nearby. They did live in a little picturesque village, but got fed up having to go everywhere in the car even to get a pint of milk. The north coast is lovely particularly around Brancaster. Burnham Market lovely but expensive.

When my parents retired, many years ago, they started their search by going into the local library in each potential retirement area and checking what activities and societies there were locally. Several places high on their list were crossed off because how ever much local life there was, the activities available didn't interest them.

If Norfolk offers the life you want then checked on the availability of facilities, as Seacliff has pointed out, check the local hospital, also GP surgeries, easy access to shops and public transport, then check the property market. Is it an area with a good range of the kind properties you are looking for? If you want a bungalow in an area with few bungalows in the housing stock, this makes them unduly expensive. Only when you have g done your homework, should you make a final decision to move. Nowadays it is so much easier to check an area out with so much information available at the click of a mouse.

My parents original intention was to move to Kent, but they were finding diffficult to find anywhere there that met their criteria. They happened to visit a friend who had just moved to the West Sussex and liked the look of the place, did their homework, found it met their criteria and lived their for 35 years until they died. Because they had done their homework they rapidly built up a social circle of people who shared their interests and outlook and never regretted a very carefully researched decision. The shops were convenient, and the bus to the hospital ran past the end of the road.

Check Norfolk out, but do not be blinkered, lots of places one visits on holiday and like are very different if you live there. Keep an open mind.

Great post M0nica and all very true.

For all , its partially about property prices. We just cannot afford a bungalow in Essex , even if we could find one. The idea is to downsize and free up some capital from our current 4 bed home.

We looked in Lincolnshire because of great availability of properties and the price was amazing but when we went to visit it just didn't grab us.

Ideally I'd love to go home to Hampshire but we would have to sell at least one grandchild to achieve that :-)

You might like to look here in the East Midlands for good property prices and good facilities.

I have a friend in Lee-on-Solent N&G prices there aren't too bad, especially if your downsizing from a 4 bed. Good hospitals in the area too, my friend is a midwife at one. The name escapes me at the moment.

Thanks Ladies - we're open to all suggestions and advice.
Porcupine 2 - where are you thinking in Norfolk?

Don't do it!!!! Unless you like mud!

Agree with Teetime- the East Midlands are close enough to Norfolk for regular visits- lovely rolling hills and mellow stone houses, no flooding (parts of Norfolk are truly at risk) and close to A14, M1, M11, M6 and great train services to London and all over- and fabulous prices still.

We just love Market Harborough for instance- great shops, pubs, restaurants... and close to wonderful Rutland (much more expensive and higher taxes) - and lots of larger shopping centres close by (Leicester and Kettering) and fast trains to London and Europe.

It's 30 years since I left Norfolk and would happily have stayed there if it hadn't been for ex's job. We lived just south of King's Lynn which had all the amenities we needed. For special shopping we were pretty much equidistant from Norwich, Cambridge and Peterborough. The coast was very accessible and great for the children who were then still quite young. We lived on the edge of the marshlands and I didn't much like the scenery. However, we could easily access more rolling countryside between KL and the coast - Sandringham Country Park was good for an afternoon's outing. I also liked living in the Midlands where there is lovely countryside and easy access to the Cotswolds.

we moved to Norfolk 8 years ago..unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control we had to move more or less overnight and had to be rehoused as a homeless family, throwing ourselves at the mercy of Breckland council...we where already in social housing in Essex..we had no time to prepare our selves and my grandaughter for whom I have a special guardianship order for the massive change of life, my OH and my GD and I where all townies and the reason for our move meant we had to be somewhere not easily found and quite rural....oh what a shock to the system ...fresh air,mud,chickens,ducks,deer in the garden....a slower pace of life,what wasnt to like,fortunately for us. Over the years we have moved to another village and if that is something you are keen on check what facilities are available,bus route etc.
Norfolk has one A road A47 which stretches from gt yarmouth to peterborough and this route is served well by the X1 route,however the villages are not so well served and you may get out of the village,but not be able to get back again.
Swaffham is a quite market town and although there at least 8 charity shops and bugger all else, it has good links to Norwich and kings lynn,I live in a village on the outskirts of swaffham and car and both able to drive is essential as the taxi service is very limited.
There are two hospitals The Norfolk and Norwich university hospital in Norwich,and The Queen Elizabeth in Kings lynn.
I would be happy to find some information for you if you are interestedxx

Thanks for all the info' & thoughts. My husband drives, but I don't, so it sounds like being in/near Norwich is best bet.....or a market town with rail station. Any ideas? Is the Norfolk and Norwich university hospital ok or in special measures? We moved from London to Dorset on retiring, & am well aware how remote & cut off village life often is without driving. We ended up in Weymouth, & I would now like to move somewhere a trifle more ( not meaning to be rude ), sophisticated. We don't do monarchy, church or military, which seem to often be pervasive in rural Dorset.

You say that you would like to move to somewhere a little more 'sophisticated'. Norfolk is still one of the most rural counties.

I don't live in Norfolk but visited for a short holiday in October. Having driven there, we wanted to use the car as little as possible and waited in vain for a bus to take us to Wells, as a leaflet in the cottage and internet research told us was possible. They had brought in the winter schedule a week early, so the half-hourly service along the north coast was reduced to 2-hourly. That would put me off moving there.

The rail service from Norwich to London is rubbish.

My biggest regret coming to Norfolk in 1972. Difficult to move from. Transport abysmal, they don't like "in comers" etc etc etc I dare not say more.

Three of our happiest years were spent in Norfolk in the same area where downtoearth now lives but we were young (our third child was born there) fit and healthy.

We still live in East Anglia but close to Cambridge so nearer to Addenbrookes Hospital, Stansted Airport, M11, A14 etc

There's a lot to consider because it's easy to become cut off from friends and family if transport links are a bit iffy.

North Norfolk is beautiful and if I won the lottery I'd be heading in that direction. It's still a long way from anywhere though.

I echo what Merlotgran says, Norfolk is a long way from anywhere else, and transport links can be very iffy! If you want to get around and see friends and family regularly, then don't go so far away (we made this mistake on first retiring, and returned to Oxfordshire after just four years.)
Much happier now, and can get to other places much easier.
In any case, make sure wherever you live can never flood!

Porcupine, You could think about moving to the very north of Essex where it is rural but with cheaper house prices than Norfolk and Suffolk but not too far away from family. We moved to near Manningtree from south London and it working out fine.

My sister and familv had to move to Norfolk from London nearly ten years ago for her husband's job - he was then made redundant 18 months later ! But they have never regretted it and the children thrived . They plan to move to Norwich once both children finish school as they love it .BUT public transport is awful and expensive . Bear that in mind once you can no longer drive . Norwich hospital very good . My sis had her bunions done within weeks of referral ( I can't even get on a waiting list here in London!) Not much choice of GP surgeries though and she says she isn't very impressed with theirs . .....

North Essex is lovely. There's still life there. Lol.

I would say that, I'm an Essex girl, proper Essex, Southend on sea !