THERE’S a tapas bar. And a Chicago Rock Café. But London Road, which runs through the centre of Grantham, Lincolnshire, is a long way from its namesake, in more ways than one. So why did a successful music business manager and his wife leave their house just off Upper Street in Islington and move to a place once dubbed “the most boring town in Britain”?
“Grantham is in the middle of nowhere, but only an hour from everywhere,” says Martin Patton, 45, who has spent his life managing bands such as Catatonia. “There’s a fast train to London, so I can be in the West End in about an hour and 20 minutes.” He is currently setting up a new venture and plans to split his time between Grantham and his West End office.
He and his wife Sarah have a son, Joe, 4, and a four-day-old baby girl. They admit that the availability of decent schools and the prospect of a huge garden for their family to romp around in were two of the deciding factors behind their move. But they also mention that all their friends with children appeared to be deserting the capital. “Our lives were changing. We weren’t going out and partying any more, and as a family we weren’t going out and using London, ” Martin says. “We knew we wanted to leave before we had another child.”
Nottingham was their first choice, and they were on the verge of buying a Victorian house in the Mapperley Park area, which is popular with families. “But then we realised we would just be moving from one city to another,” says Sarah, 35. “And the Nottingham house had a tiny garden,” Martin says. “So what would have been the point?”
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Martin grew up in Lincoln, where his mother still lives, and Sarah’s family is based around Chesterfield. They started combing the map for somewhere near to both. “Then suddenly, it hit us — what we were looking for was a market town,” Martin says. “We didn’t want to live in a country village. We wanted to be close to shops and amenities. And we wanted Joe’s school friends to be a walk away, not a drive. Grantham came into our heads.”
In May they bought a large, four-bedroom Edwardian semi with rambling gardens in a well-established area of the town. It was originally on the market for £295,000, but shrewd negotiating skills got the price down to £247,000 — “under the stamp-duty threshold,” Martin says.
The house has some lovely features: original leaded windows, checkerboard tiles, a wood veranda, but needs complete renovation — including central heating.
Buying a house like this is a long-term project, which will demand regular injections of cash. But the house is big enough for the couple’s large network of friends and family to come and stay. This is especially important for Sarah, who is aware that she may feel isolated when Joe goes to school next month and she is left looking after her newborn baby. “I had no illusions about moving here,” she says. “On the day we came to look around it was chucking it down, and you can’t avoid the boarded-up shops. Some town centres might be in decline, but every place I used in London, like a manicurist and an osteopath, I’ve found here. You will have less choice, and may have to join a waiting list for an appointment, but it’s a case of revising your expectations.”
Which, as anyone who has made the big shift will tell you, is the key to making a success of small town living.
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TOWN PLANNING