Meet the London homeowners who became village tenants, who want a taste of rural life with the option to move back.

The pandemic has inspired some collective soul searching about how – and where – we live. In the last year, estate agents have reported a frenzy of buying in rural areas, while prices have been pushed up by soaring demand. But what about those who, faced with lockdowns, were not prepared to make a totally clean break?

Clare Edmondson and Brochan Watts quit the capital for the country – but kept themselves an escape route just in case it didn’t work out, by becoming “double renters”. Rather than selling their London flat, and cutting themselves off from a return to their old lives, they have rented it out and are using the proceeds to rent themselves a much larger barn conversion in the Cotswolds countryside.

“It all started right at the beginning of lockdown,” said Ms Edmondson, a TV presenter and yoga instructor. “I love London, and although we had been talking a little bit about moving – because eventually we would not want to be living in a one-bedroom flat in Stockwell – for me it was something in the distance. I was not quite ready to go. But the pandemic kind of made the decision for us.”