{"id":90483,"date":"2026-07-26T05:31:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T05:31:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/90483\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T05:31:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T05:31:41","slug":"i-left-london-and-created-my-dream-home-now-i-dont-miss-the-city-at-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/90483\/","title":{"rendered":"I left London and created my dream home. Now I don\u2019t miss the city at all"},"content":{"rendered":"

As sudden life changes go, giving up a senior job at the same time as swapping city life for the quiet of the countryside sounds dramatic. Yet long before the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated such lifestyle trends \u2013 14 years ago in fact \u2013 that was exactly what Emma Sherlock, an interior designer, did, when she left London. \u201cIt was a big adjustment, and I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d recommend it all in one go, but it\u2019s all worked out brilliantly,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Sherlock had worked as promotions director for Vogue for 13 years, but living in a flat in Hammersmith<\/a>, with her husband and their two young sons, the desire for more space and freedom eventually took over. \u201cThere came a time where I just wanted to open the back door and let the children out and not have to go to the park,\u201d she explains. She also had one eye on a career pivot into interior design.<\/p>\n

She grew up in Hampshire, so she and her husband, Jamie Sherlock, began circling the Bourne Valley, an area with picturesque countryside, good schools and a reliable commute back into the capital (Jamie kept his job in the City). It took a year of viewings for them to land on this brick and flint cottage. \u201cI really wanted something that was quite charming and pretty, but I didn\u2019t want a thatched cottage. And I didn\u2019t want to be in something that was too dark. What appealed was the house\u2019s L-shaped layout, and that we didn\u2019t need to spend a huge amount of money on building work,\u201d explains Sherlock.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As sudden life changes go, giving up a senior job at the same time as swapping city life…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90484,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[36493,1929,27,330,1797],"class_list":["post-90483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-countryside","tag-interiors","tag-london","tag-standard","tag-top-story"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116984642470070473","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90484"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}