Moving to Wiltshire

[MMSomerset]

Hi, we are hoping to move to Wiltshire later in the year but don’t know the area at all! We have a 6 and 4 year old. We’re looking for a village/small town with a few independent shops/cafes/pubs. Good primary school and preferably near to a station, parks!
We’ve heard good things about Corsham but we’re not sure where to start our search. All advice welcome please!
Somewhere so to an annexe/air bnb potential would be a plus but not essential :) thanks!

Lucky you!
I used to work in Malmesbury (middle of nowhere)
Marlborough is nice but a long way from transport links

Corsham is great. Big enough and great for Bath and Swindon.

I love Wiltshire abs loved there for some time, near Devizes which was great.

We moved to just inside the Somerset border although my children still go to school in Wiltshire. It's a lovely part of the world.

We wanted somewhere with an annexe and a few acres for our horses and found Somerset a little cheaper ( although we really are only just inside the Somerset border near Frome ) Wiltshire can be expensive depending on where you choose.

Chippenham and the surrounding villages are popular with commuters to London and therefore quite expensive. North Wilts ( Swindon, Marlborough Ect ) is very convenient for everywhere, Wiltshire has good access to Bristol and Bath ( we are only 20/25 mins from each ).

Corsham is very near my DS's school and is lovely. I can highly recommend Wiltshire ( and N Somerset ) it depends how reliant you are on needing to commute Ect.

Auto correct on my phone is shite - first paragraph should say...
And lived there for some time!

Following. Wiltshire would make sense for us geographically but I never know where would be best.

I'm in Swindon which is on the mainline to London/Reading and Bristol. There's Royal Wootton Bassett, Corsham, Malmesbury all close by. Its a lovely place to live.

Corsham is great, Bradford on Avon is nearby and also lovely, with good train links and good schools. Although Swindon is grim, there are a number of nice small towns near it. Salisbury is lovely and again, nice small towns and villages nearby. It also has ther only grammar schools in the county if that's likely to interest you.

I can recommend Warminster (parks, library, quite a quaint little high street with coffee shops and pubs, a few other shops, train station, Waitrose food hall as well as an ALDI, nice primary schools, beautiful countryside).

It’s only about half an hour’s drive from Bath, an hour from Bristol and 20 minutes or so from Salisbury (which has 2 grammar schools if you’re thinking of that sort of thing).

You want to be near a station.
Walking within half an hour or 10 mins in the car?
Where do you want to get to?
When we moved to Wiltshire, we started with the train map

I think Warminster and the surrounding villages are underrated which makes property good value and far cheaper than Frome which is just up the road. I think this is probably due to it being a garrison town. The secondary and most of the primary schools are rated good and there is also an independent. There is a lovely park and lots of great walks up to the edge of Salisbury Plain or into the woods around Longleat and Centre Parcs which are on the edge of the town. Bath and Salisbury in easy reach by train or bus but it is a long way from the M4, if that's important to you.

Warminster does indeed have a Waitrose, Morrisons and Lidl, though the Aldi is in nearby Westbury. The high street has suffered in the pandemic with a number of permanent shop closures, though probably no more than many others. Search out the local Facebook page Heart of Warminster to give you a feel for the area. I'm sure most of the other towns have similar pages which might help you decide.

Thanks everyone! This is very helpful :) we’ve been looking at Somerset for a while but most places are just under 2 hours away and we wanted somewhere in the country but still commutable from reading/Wokingham way a few days a week.
We’ll hopefully go for a drive around soon. We’ve seen some nice houses in Warminster too!

I live in Wiltshire and definitely say Warminster rather than Corsham. The M4 corridor hasn’t done a number of places any favours IMO, including Corsham, Chippenham and surrounding villages.

Corsham is gorgeous!

Tetbury and Cirencester are also nice and not much further out.