Commuting to Harston from Linton/Abington/etc?

[hatinghousehunting]

We're relocating from West Sussex to Cambridge area, husband having accepted a job in Harston. Having spent some time traipsing around the area, I really like the look of either Abington or Linton (okay, if I had all the money in the world I'd buy in Great Shelford, but I don't think that's happening). Can anyone tell me what the rush hour commute to Harston is like from these villages? How is the traffic in general around the south of Cambridge if you're not trying to go into the the city itself?

(Sorry to start yet another Tell Me About Commuting thread, but the existing ones all seem to be about commuting into either Cambridge itself or London)

I do a commute from Linton/Abington to Whittlesford Station car park which takes around 15 minutes, leaving at 7:30. This route is via the Pampisford Road in Abington, so you contend with 11 speed bumps rather than the Cambridge Road. If you leave later (nearer a school dropping off time) it can take longer as queues develop around the McDonald's roundabout near Sawston.
So, I'd reckon it would take 20 minutes to the A505/M11 junction, then 10 minutes up to the A10/M11 junction ... then however long it would take to get to where you want in Harston. Total on an average day = 30-35 minutes? Hopefully, much the same on the way home.

Brilliant, thanks for the insider information. Looking at the traffic on Google Maps now (5:30ish) I can see that Sawston/McDonald's roundabout is a ring of red in the middle of an otherwise pretty clear route.

Is Pampisford Road very busy at rush hours? One of the properties we're looking at is pretty much on that road, and we're a bit concerned about traffic.

It's not very busy, just very... bumpy. Someone took the county's entire allocation of speed humps and scattered them down that road.

Heh, after West Sussex and its amazing collection of roundabouts, speed bumps might be a nice change... glad to hear that the road isn't too busy, anyway. It was a bit disconcerting to turn up to our house viewing and find a policeman camped outside the front gate with a speed gun...

Linton sounds like it could be a distinct possibility, then. My ridiculously picky beloved husband has set me the challenge of finding a 4-bed semi/detached with a large garden backing onto countryside, within walking distance of a village high street with shops/cafe/etc and commutable to Harston in under 30 min. For under £450k. By January. AHAHAHAHAHA. twitch

(argh, stupid non-HTML message formatting. Apologies)

Wrong village, but here you go

can't tell about the view but it slopes, so you might be in luck!

Hee, I've been to that house Tingalingle. When the estate agent says "some finishing required", they mean "has no kitchen, bathroom, front room, central heating, and, in some places, ceiling".

(lots of potential in that house admittedly, but waaaaaaay too much work required for our budget)

That Linton house is gorgeous, but it is directly on a 40 mph road (as in, cars whizzing past three feet from your front window). Any locals know how busy that road is?

Argh, on closer inspection the Linton house is from 1850s, which probably means low ceilings. Unfortunately, my husband is 6'8" tall...

(had to pass on a great property in Harston because he literally couldn't stand up in the bedrooms. Estate agent suggested I change my husband)

The Linton house is on the High Street - the speed limit in the High St is 20 mph though you get a fair number of cars going down there at all times. Very convenient for the new butchers' shop!
Don't know about the ceiling heights - we had problems when we looked at nice old cottages in the area (tall DH and 2 DSs) so went for modern!

Well, if there's no ceiling, that solves your DH's height problem...

(Similar issues with cottage ceiling heights in this family btw.)

Linton High Street is mostly one way and limited to 20, I think, but I'm not sure quite where this house is. If it's in the middle narrow bit the problem might be more one of buses scraping your front windows.

I am glad that I'm not the only one who has to cope with a freakishly tall family! I sit here gently sobbing in front of property websites full of beautiful beamed old cottages...

I'm guessing you've looked at this one? Some creative perspective involved there if it's the one I'm thinking of.

But you specified a cafe... although Abington does have a cafe it's volunteer-run and only open a couple of times a week.

Ignore me, the house above is not the one I thought at first but a rather nice one overlooking a field... I think you'll find that's the field that the village is currently voting over building on, just so's you know.

Pampisford Road is a bit of a rat run onto the A505 - as well as access to Granta Park. The speed humps were put in by Granta Park (planning request of the council) when the 2nd phase of the science park was approved - you do realise that it it is the house Tingalingle linked to, that there may be large pharma company buildings somewhere behind in a few years?
Linton does boast a small cafe now, the Linton Kitchen, but it only has a few seats (because some mean minded neighbour objected).

To be fair, the entire village surrounds seems pretty much open to bids for housing development, not just that field.

'Overlooking a field' can be overrated if it actually means 'overlooking new building works in a years' time'. Maybe find something overlooking a nice pre-existing building -- or a stream.

We're actually seriously considering that house Tingalingle! Went up to see it last weekend and it's got tons of potential. Currently owned by a horse-mad family so half the garden is gravelled over for parking enormous horse trailers, and there are some oddities in the layout. Like.. the utility bigger than the kitchen, devoted to saddles and rosettes, which is the only entrance to the house.

I do think the price on it is a bit cheeky considering it needs a fair amount of work, and the location isn't the greatest. Very interesting about the field being developed opposite. Is it for pharma companies or housing?

I kind of have my eye on Granta Park as a workplace if possible - I drool at the thought of getting an employee discount on the Montessori nursery there for my 3 year old daughter. I'm a software engineer rather than a pharma scientist though, so there might not be much going.

I always think that Linton is a lovely village, but it would drive me mad having to turn right out of the village onto the main road in rush hour every morning.
Have you considered going the other way, somewhere like Haslingfield or Foxton? Or Orwell, which is lovely. They are much smaller villages than Linton (no cafes....) but much easier for getting to Harston and also for getting into Cambridge.
If I had unlimited money I would be tempted by Great Shelford.

Homes rather than pharma on that particular corner -- the proposal is for up to 12 houses, at the corner of the Pampisford Road/village high street, so might leave a decent strip of field still there to gaze at.

It is a lovely house though.

How about Ickleton?

new build, so taller ceilings?

Ickleton as an area is a possibility, though most of the new build houses seem to have tiny gardens (that one Tingalingle linked seems to just have a bit of gravel, despite the sweeping countryside views ). Ickleton seems to be bang on the M11 though - does it get a lot of traffic noise? I noticed a bit of traffic noise when I was pootling around Whittlesford, and that's a good distance further away from the motorway.

Great/Little Shelford and Stapleford are on my "would love to buy in" list, but there's hardly anything on offer around there at the moment. Watching Zoopla and Rightmove like a hawk, though.

Okay! Since you lovely folks are veritable founts of local information, let me tell you the current list of villages I'm considering, based on distance to Harston and primary school catchment area:

(deep breath)

Coton, Highfields Caldecote, Toft, Comberton, Bourn, Kingsdon, Great/Little Eversden, Harston, Orwell, Barrington, Shepreth, Foxton, Newton, Thriplow, Fowlmere, Meldreth, Whaddon, Bassingbourn, Litlington, Barley, Great Chishill, Chrishall, Heydon, Great Chesterford, Linton, Abington, Babraham, Whittlesford, Great/Little Shelford and Stapleford.

Can anyone weigh in on which ones have at least a shop or two? Any villages particularly nice or grim?

Traffic noise is a fact of life in most places round here, sorry. Get yourself a house next to someone with dogs, veg vans or chickens, though, and the traffic pales into insignificance.

OK, of your list, I know that Babraham has no shop but a good pub and nursery.
Shelfords and Staplefords: shops, pubs, good cycle connections to Cambridge (feed into Sawston VC for secondary if you're looking that far ahead)
Whittlesford: train station, vets, shops, pubs. Some parts very pretty. Also feeds into Sawston. As does Sawston itself, of course.
Abington, Linton: shops, hairdressers, pubs; bit lacking in cafes. Schools feed into Linton VC for secondary.
Comberton: bit strung out but has some shops (shoe shop plus rustic-y bits shops IIRC, and at least a PO/general store) and its own secondary, and is pretty in parts.
Bourn, Toft, Coton, Caldecote: feed into Comberton VC. I don't know them well.
Thriplow: dunno, but it has a dump recycling centre
Fowlmere/Shepreth: handy for wildlife park!

LOL at Thriplow's main feature! Definitely straight to the top of my list now.

Great to know about the traffic noise, I stop looking for dead silent villages (like they are down here in Sussex) and just tell my husband a bit of traffic noise is a price he will have to pay for his excellent new job.

Thank you very much for the list - saves me hours virtually crawling down village roads in Google Street View squinting at building fronts.

(of course, the main problem is actually finding a property at all in some of these villages... housing market isn't exactly bustling at the moment)

The rest of Thriplow is rather pretty and has Daffodil Festival weekends -- but it is undeniably handy for getting rid of old cars, formica worktops and gnomes.