A move south to Castle Mews in Watlington brings the Macdonalds closer to family

Forming part of the popular Castle Gardens development, less than half-a-mile from Watlington High Street, Castle Mews is a collection of 25 one- and two-bedroom apartments, designed exclusively for the over 55s and set in beautifully landscaped and fully maintained grounds. The established community has the use of a delightful residents’ pavilion, a new residents’ lounge, a guest suite for visiting family and friends and an on-site estate management service.

“We’ve visited the area many times because my daughter and her family live in Chinnor,” says Mr Macdonald. “Both she and her husband have high-powered jobs and are frequently away from home for work, so ever since our grandson came along, we’ve been travelling down from Littleborough in a child-minding capacity, which involves a 200-mile journey in each direction. Now we’re getting older, it’s more of an effort to look after a house and garden, so it made sense to move.”

“We came to stay with our daughter on one occasion, having been travelling down quite a lot and our daughter asked if we fancied moving,” says Mrs Macdonald. “We drove past Beechcroft’s Castle Gardens in Watlington and called in to take a look. That was the first of several visits and, whilst we looked at the apartments available, there wasn’t one that really suited us at the time. I had a good feeling about the development though but I was a bit hesitant because, of course, downsizing is such a big decision. We did go to look a development built by another retirement specialist but it felt like a care home, unlike the Beechcroft development.”

“One of the best things for me is that our daughter is able to pop in for coffee and we go shopping together. We can spend more time with our grandson, who is 12 years old now and he thinks it’s great that we live so close. We’ve always looked after him whilst our daughter and her husband have been working away but now, we can go and watch his football matches and watch him swimming – and we don’t have far to travel.”

“When we moved, we used Beechcroft’s ‘Manage Your Move Service which we would certainly recommend. They packed all our belongings up, which saved us having to find boxes and pack it ourselves. It’s quite overwhelming when you look at the pile of boxes. Our new apartment wasn’t quite ready so we moved into my daughter’s house for a while and the moving service transported our belongings and stacked them in my daughter’s garage and then, when it was time to move in, we gradually transferred them to our new home.”

“We were the first to move into Castle Mews but we’ve just met some more new neighbours and we’d already met some of the neighbours from Castle Gardens, because we were invited to a couple of Beechcroft’s garden parties before we actually decided to move.”

“There’s a good sense of community here. The neighbours are very nice, some of them have invited us round for drinks, we’ve been to quizzes organised by the residents, there’s a gardening club and there’s a new residents’ lounge, which is lovely. One of the residents has sent us flyers about trips – some of which are local, like going for a coffee and a walk along the Thames. We have a community WhatsApp group to keep in touch. It’s also good to have an Estate Manager on hand. When the weather was icy, our Manager made sure that all the paths were salted.”

To join the Macdonalds at Castle Mews, where prices for a one-bedroom apartment with a private balcony and allocated parking start from £350,000 and for a two-bedroom apartment with a balcony and parking start from £520,000.