St Albans / Guilford - Where to live????

[AurRevoirMesAmis]

Hi there everyone. I am a complete newbie. My DH, DC and I are moving back to the UK after 4 years abroad. We are looking to move to a place that has a town feel to it, excellent connections to Central London and excellent state schools (private is not an option at all).

I have a 6 year old DS and a 3 year old DD.

By some friends suggestion, we initially started looking in Guilford. We liked the town, but not so much the areas where we would have to live in order to be within George Abbot's catchment area. The houses are all fairly new builds and just lack the appeal that period houses have (and the reason I've always loved London so much!). You also don't seem to get much for our budget of £630K as people are prepared to pay over the odds to be in George Abbots catchment area. This has sort of put me off this area a little bit but I wonder if I'm missing something.

Somebody has also suggested St Albans. Before we make a trip to the UK to see the area and view some houses, I was wondering if somebody may be able to suggest some specific areas within St Albans, good schools, etc. Obviously primary schools are important but we're also very much thinking about secondary even though my DS will only be in Year 3 next sept.

Finally, if anybody out there may be able to put forward other suggestions for alternative areas, I'd certainly look into them. We have already visited Godalming and found it pleasant but way too small and really not for us at all.

Many many thanks!

milford and witley are smaller, but having left a large town to live here 8 yrs ago, i find that i can get pretty much everything i need locally on the whole, and save guildford or woking for an occasional shopping treat iyswim

witley is the smaller of the 2, just a couple of local stores, a pub and a hairdressers/ beauty place (i think) milford has now got a new tesco express, as well as a co-op and the posh farm store/garden centre, which is lovely and like stepping back in time, but expensive

lots of home made food there tho

godalming has a sainsburys and a waitrose, a homebase, a pets at home, for larger stores

they have robert dyas and pizza express and a wh smith, mckays, that kind of thing

quite a few eateries as well

its a good area i think to bring up kids

farnham is nice yes, but i dont know it that well

Rodborough is the name of the school, it's in the village of Milford a few miles outside of Godalming.

it has quite a large catchment area, but is v popular

My problem with Grammar school areas is the schools that are left if you don't get into the grammar. Some areas this is not as bad as others eg. Essex has some good comprehensives, maybe because the grammars are pretty super selective?

Children can be bright but not grammar school material. Also I would never want to put my kids in for an exam that left them in tears, which happened to some friends sons after a private school exam.

BTW if Godalming is too small for you then I can't imagine you in Milford or Witley (fab junior school in Witley though).

yep they are definitely not for those who like everything on their doorstep, but wrt schools its a good place to be

i second the junior school being great as well

colchester in essex has v good state single sex grammar schools still , but its about an hour to liverpool street

( i grew up there )

Yes I guess it's fair to say I like everything on my doorstep. I suppose my fear of driving plays a part in that preference!
What do you think of Kent?

I only passed my test in 06 btw and i am almost 44.

The plus side of smaller villages is that traffic is less. I used to hate the thought of driving in guildford, but it doesn't bother me now i have done it so much. I need to drive tho as Ds2 uses a wheelchair, so a car is necessary for us

I know of a couple of families who live in towns in surrey and don't have cars at all. If you buy a house within walking distance (1 mile) of schools and station you will get by ok. You can always do online supermarket orders and order loads of other things online. The only time you really need a car would be to visit friends in the villages. If your DH drives you would be able to travel to more rural areas at weekends.

The following places have good state primary and secondary schools:

Reigate/Redhill

Dorking

and Horsham in Sussex (the train service to London is faster than some of the surrey connections)

Some of the places with good primary schools in the west of surrey such as farnham have secondaries without attached sixth forms (I think).

Or you could look at the Cheam (Sutton) area if you want to be nearer london. There are still grammar schools there.

Waverley has sixth form colleges, both Godalming College and Farnham college are very good though (and some of the secondaries are as good as any with sixth forms). Guildford has school sixth forms, although some students go onto Godalming etc.

I would give my right arm to live in St Albans I love it :)

Dd1 goes to godalming college. Some of her friends went to guildford college instead, dependingon courses they wanted, and some came from guildford to godalming to study.

It does have a v good rep. People queued up for hours to register there this year as they thought it would give them priority. Apparently fights broke out between families!

I love St Albans but prefer Harpenden as its smaller and less traffic. My sister teaches Reception in a St Albans school

Oh how about Hitchin? (I'd still prefer Harpenden though lol)

Au Revoir - I live in a village where everything is on the dorstep in terms of shops, dentist, library, doctor etc and it is great. HOWEVER school, extra curricular activities, cinema, DCs' friends etc are NOT on the doorstep. It is for this reason you should try to consider taking up driving again. I really can't imagine how we would manage without the 4 wheeled beast!!

We were due to fly over to the UK this weekend to check some of the areas you have mentioned but it doesn't look like it's going to happen now because of the snow . If anybody out there has any further suggestions (still keen to learn a bit about Kent) I am still around and researching on everything from areas to schools (primary and secondary.

I am snowed in here!

Hi, We moved a few years ago from St Albans to the Guildford area so I know both. St Albans is lovely but it's a small'ish town for the amount of people who want to live there, consquentley all resources (Houses, education, roads) are under pressure. The traffic can be awful but the train service (whilst packed) is fast into London.
Guildford - larger town centre, better range of shops but less state schools.
My feeling is that St Albans is better for schools but in Surrey there is less pressure on places (just!). Your budget is a difficult range (same as ours was). Seems lots of families have similar budget so competition for houses in both areas is fierce. We had to go into sealed bids to buy and supposedly at a quiet time in the market.
Any questions let me know - as I do feel I've had to make the same decision as you

I don't think that anyone else has suggested it, but have you thought of Barnes?

I know this thread is 3 years old, but just wondering where you chose? We're considering St Albans vs Surrey at the moment.