No Place Like Home For Retired Couple In Essex

Bob and Islay were among the first few people to move into a new home at Bovis Homes’ Coggeshall Mill development in August this year, having chosen a house in order to be nearer to one of their four children, who lives in the town, but just a few days after getting their keys, they were off to Canada for a two-week holiday.

They also have trips planned to the Canary Islands and to visit another of their children in New Zealand.

However, although retired finance worker Bob, 77, and retired teacher Islay, 74, enjoy spending time away, it’s also lovely to come back to their spacious and peaceful new three-bedroom detached home at Coggeshall Mill, and their Cockapoo, Mac.

Islay says: “Our house is the Spruce type and it is a corner plot. We really like this as we get different views out each window. The house brings in so much light and makes the rooms feel very relaxing and more spacious. We have fewer bedrooms than in our previous four-bedroom home, but still have more space, with an en-suite bathroom and a utility room, which I have never had before. It provides us with much more needed storage space. Our new home feels easy to leave, as the surrounding area is very secure. Being part of a development just outside Coggeshall makes it a quiet and secluded area.”

The couple, who have three daughters and one son, used Bovis Homes’ Smooth Move scheme to help sell their old semi-detached house in Chelmsford. Under Smooth Move, the housebuilder arranges a valuation of the customer’s old home and agrees a selling price, and then liaises with the estate agent during the marketing of the property, as well as paying the agent’s fees.

Bob says: “We were recommended by the sales consultant to use the Smooth Move scheme. It is a good concept and it made the process of buying our new home easier. Smooth Move also covered the cost of the estate agent fees, which for us was a big plus, as it took away the stress of having to deal with that.”

The couple were among the first people to move into the development, having been told about the new homes planned in the town before they had even started to be built.

Islay says: “It was our daughter in Coggeshall who was behind the reason we have moved here. She put her foot down and said it was about time we lived closer to her, which we thought was a good idea. We decided that once we moved, we didn’t want to have to do much to the home, so we decided the best option for us was to buy a new build. She informed us of a new development being built in Coggeshall before it was officially announced. We kept our eye on Coggeshall Mill throughout its early stages of construction and once the first advertisement for it went out, we then made contact. We first visited the site in November 2022, nothing was finished yet, but we could envision living here. The design of the site is less traditional and that stood out to us. We went to go and look at the Spruce house type at the Bishop’s Stortford site and it was just what we were after.”

Bob and Islay were impressed with the sales consultants throughout the process of buying their new home.

Islay recalls: “The day we got the keys, I remember vividly. We were driving to our new home, and we got a phone call from the sales consultant saying that they had put on the kettle in the sales office and left some biscuits out for us for when we collected the keys. We recommend Coggeshall Mill to our friends and family. We recommended it recently to some friends of ours and they are now potentially buying a new home here.”

Bovis Homes is part of the Vistry Group, which also includes Linden Homes and Countryside Homes.

There is currently a range of two- to five-bedroom homes being built at Coggeshall Mill, with three- and four-bedroom detached houses currently available to reserve, priced from £467,995. 

View more developments currently available from Bovis Homes

Find new homes in Essex
Find new Shared Ownership homes in Essex
Find retirement homes in Essex