Homes & Property | Where to live
London leavers: 'I swapped Norbury for my dream life with rescue chickens in a £705k cottage in Dorset'
For years Rachel Hill dreamed of life in the country. And she has built her escape on sponge cake and buttercream.
Rachel and her son Luca, ten, moved from suburban Norbury, south London, to a village on the fringes of Dorchester, Dorset.
“Instead of going to the same park we have been to 50,000 times we now go to the sea, which is 15 minutes away, or to the woods,” said Rachel.
“At the bottom of the garden there are cows and sheep. It was my dream to be surrounded by nature. In London I felt like I was trapped in a box.”
Rachel’s first career was working as a set designer in film and TV.
When she became a mother she realised she needed something more flexible and set up shop as a wedding cake maker with her company Rachelle’s.
“In London I felt like I was trapped in a box.”
She owned a three bedroom 1930s semi and life was good.
But, after spending her own childhood in rural Wales and Hampshire, she wanted Luca to have the same freedom.
“I was very scared because I am the sole provider for my family, and my business was in London,” said Rachel, 50.
At the tail end of 2019 Rachel decided to take the plunge.
“I was very scared because I am the sole provider for my family, and my business was in London.”
She put her house on the market, and began looking at houses.
Her only real criteria was that she didn’t want to be too far from her father, who lives in Farnham, Surrey, which gave her a big swathe of the country to choose from.
Then Covid-19 hit and Rachel found herself stuck in a holding pattern.
To make matters worse the wedding industry was shut down, cutting off her only source of income.
“London was brilliant while I was younger but as you grow up your priorities change.”
Undeterred, and with time on her hands, Rachel began teaching herself a new skill, piping delicate flowers out of buttercream icing, which she used to decorate her cakes.
She began running online tutorials to share the skill and discovered — to her delight and amazement — that amateur cooks from all over the world were keen to learn from her.
In 2021 Rachel found a buyer for her house.
She also found a property to buy, a detached four-bedroom former workers’ cottage in a village a mile from the centre of Dorchester.
In February 2022 she sold her house, for £715,000, and paid £705,000 for the cottage.
Two years on and Rachel has not a single regret about leaving London
Her business is booming, and she has just won planning permission to build a workshop by her house where she can teach cake decorating masterclasses, as well as making her own wedding cakes and cupcakes.
Friends from London come to visit regularly, and Rachel is gradually forging local friendships too.
The family has expanded what with a flock of rescue chickens and a second cat.
“London was brilliant while I was younger but as you grow up your priorities change,” she said.
