Relocating help please! What are Freeland and Fritwell like?

[LizzieMint]

We are looking round villages in north oxfordshire to find somewhere to relocate to and looked at a couple of houses in these areas that we liked - does anyone live in/near either of these places? Particularly intersted in views on the primary schools. Or suggestions for where else to look - our ideal would be a village with some amenities and community. We've been looking roughly from north oxford to chipping norton. Have 3 children, 2 at primary school and one preschooler.

Lots of Oxfordshire villages have their own community website and that is a good way to have a look and see what amenities they have.

Freeland's is here www.freelandoxon.co.uk/home/index.html

Fritwell's is here www.fritwell.org.uk/

Local schools also have websites and you get a get a feel for the school through them. If most of the pictures are of the head, and all the words are about how hard he/she works that's a red flag in my mind!

I don't personally know about these two places but Zoopla has a lot of data attached to its property pages which can tell you what kind of age groups are in any particular area which can be an indication of how family friendly a place is likely to be.

You can do a lot of this research online but driving around Oxfordshire and getting out to sniff the place is always a good idea too.

Thanks Bluedoor, we have been to both places but were hoping to find someone who lived in/near. Freeland for example seems online like there is lots going on, but when we were there, we couldn't find a 'centre' as such and it looked pretty dead.

I've heard good things about Chipping Norton - I know a few of our users have posted about living there or nearby. Have you looked through some of our old talk threads?

I have lived in Long Hanborough right next to Freeland for 10 years now and brought up my 2 daughters here. The schools are great especially Bartholomew's secondary school. Freeland is very quiet with no shops but the coop is only a few miles away in Long Hanborough. You are about 4 miles from both Witney and Woodstock. Witney is a good sized and lovely market town. Woodstock also lovely but smaller with Blenheim Palace grounds in the centre. The train from Hanborough takes about 5 mins to Oxford or you can continue to Reading or London. Hope this helps.