Help me find a Sussex town/village to move to?

[PichmondRark]

If you know Sussex well can you help me.

We want to move from London to Sussex. DH needs to commute into Victoria 4x a week so we need to be near a mainline train station. We need a really good state primary and secondary but we are religious. We want a big enough village that the primary age kids don’t have to drive to school.

We adore Lewes but it’s just a bit too far to commute 4x a week so maybe somewhere with an hour or under train journey.

Brighton is too big. We want to feel we live in the countryside. We do love Brighton though.

Budget is up to £2 million for a 5 bed house.

TIA.

Can't help with schools but East Grinstead is a decent sized town with a mainline station 1 hour from Victoria. Not brilliant for shopping but Crawley or Tunbridge Wells are only 20 mins drive away. People will probably say the same of Horsham but I don't know it well enough to recommend.

Thanks. I don’t know it at all. Does it have a nice feel? I’m after somewhere like Lewes but closer but maybe that doesn’t really exist.

For a village you could look at Forest Row 10 mins drive from EG. Especially if you are into an 'alternative' lifestyle - plenty of (wannabe) crusties here. On the edge of Ashdown Forest.

Horsham or surrounding areas? Cranleigh is really nice

Forest aria looks very nice. Need to do a bit of digging for schools.

I haven’t thought of Cranleigh because Surrey seems a bit dull to me but that’s obviously my own prejudices and I should probably look into it.

HI OP - you don't say if you are looking for a religious school (or indeed what religion you are), but Haywards Heath has both a catholic primary school (St Joseph's) and C of E (St Wilfrid's) and the neighbouring village of Cuckfield also has a C of E primary (Holy Trinity). I think there are several other C of E primaries in other local villages too.

Then you have St Paul's Catholic College in Burgess Hill for secondary. St Paul's is especially well regarded (if you can get in - we are doing the rounds of secondary open evenings at the moment!).

Commuting-wise it's around 45 mins on the train to Victoria.

@Dazzalm thanks but I realise my OP missed out a vital “not”. What I mean to type is that we are not religious so won’t get into any schools with religious admissions criteria.

Ah-ha, might rule out St Paul's for secondary then, but I don't think you need to be religious/church goers for the primaries. But there are plenty of non religious schools both in the town itself and surrounding villages f you wanted to avoid that entirely.

Horsham. Great schools all the way through. You can easily get a suitable house within walking distance of the station for that money (and within walking distance of everything else, including all schools). It’s not quite as funky as Lewes but it’s got a great community and is getting more and more lively every year. The only downfall is lack of decent clothes shopping but brighton and London all within v easy train rides. Or Guildford/crawley approx 30 min car drive.

Crowborough might tick the boxes for you and close enough to Tunbridge wells to have good shops. Has a nice feel and not out of the way if you want to go to Lewes for the day

How about Hassocks? It has a mainline station, close enough to the start of the line to still get a seat. It’s got a couple of primary schools and is just a short trip from Brighton for days you want to go somewhere bigger.

We used to live in EG, and dh was working in the city - it was great as it was terminus to terminus so you did get a seat on the train even if it was slow. Looking along that rail line would give you some options - Lingfield is a nice village for instance.
Forest Row is very Steiner and woo so it depends if you like that sort of thing

Ditchling
Newick
Wivelsfield
Plumpton
Nutley
Forest Row

Hassocks
Ditchling
Hurstpierpoint

www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-71238274.html

This place is in a great location and has bags of character. I’ve heard it’s haunted though...

The property I linked to is a five minute walk from the lovely primary. The ofsted outstanding secondary school in Hassocks is a twenty minute walk - the village kids tend to walk there together. Very sweet.

@VenusClapTrap thank you. I wonder why that house has so few photos. Always makes me suspicious. But Hassocks definitely looks a possibility.

Forest Row also on the list. I like a bit of character in a community.

Lindfield
Cuckfield

Ashington? X

If you want to be in that neck of the woods then I would take a look at the villages around the Brighton mainline. Balcombe, Cuckfield, Lindfield, Hurstpierpoint, Ditchling and Newick all worth a look. Newick is close to Lewes but your DH could probably commute from Haywards Heath which is a quicker train journey.

Thanks all. We have arranged to see a property in Forest Hill at the weekend. I wanted to see several properties in one day but I have to say there is very little that fits the bill on the market. I’m excited to see the FH place though.

Anyone know much about Sackville School in Eastbourne Grinstead or other local state secondaries?

^Hurstpierpoint
Hassocks
Ditching^

So glad these places have been mentioned. I spent a lot of my childhood there, and always want to mention them on these such threads, but have no recent experience of them.

DH grew up in Forest Row and went to Sackville School. He went to a Russell Group Uni (as did many of his friends who he is still in touch with), and on the whole, as a group they've done very well for themselves. No idea what it's like now. I think Forest Row is a lovely village.

Ha ha, yes, I meant Forest Row not Forest Hill which is very London and not very rural at all!

Also clearly didn’t mean Eastbourne Grinstead. I’m on a roll today!