Please help me choosing. Guilford, Godalming, Redhill, Reigate, Dorking.

[crimp82]

Hi everyone. I am so overwhelmed that I hope someone can help me. I am planning to sell my house in London (Crystal Palace) and to relocate where my daughter (13 months old) can be raised in a village, amongst other children, a safe place and most importantly where state schools are excellent. I work in London Victoria and ideally I would like to find a place with a relatively easy commute (just over an hour). MY sis in law bought in Godalming which is an option but it does not seem to be very well connected to Victoria, so we are looking at alternatives. The most important thing for us is the state schools (I do not think we will be able to afford independent schools.). As I mentioned I would like to live next to a pretty village, green, good outdoor and most importantly excellent schools (ideally both primary and secondary ) since this will be our forever house. Our budget is anything in the region of £800K/annum for a 4 bed house. Please help.

I would immediately discount Redhill from that list. It's quite a run down town. Any of the others are nice, although I'm not familiar with the schools there.

Have you looked at areas around Horsham such as Warnham? Horsham has good train links to Victoria and I know Millais is a good school.
Or East Grinstead - Imberhorne School is also good I believe.

Not sure about the other places you've mentioned, but Guildford is certainly not a village. It's a very large town with it's own cathedral (which oddly doesn't confer city status on it though).

Agree with Redhill being discounted. Reigate is lovely and some nice areas, just be picky

Lots of nice villages around Dorking

Reigate is exceptionally lovely but £800k won't buy you a lot of house here I'm afraid, at least not in the generally more desirable side of town nearer to the station and the high street- you'll get a small 4 bed with a very small garden, or a larger 3 bed for that money. There is better value down the hill towards Woodhatch, but most people who want to move to Reigate don't want to live down there I'm afraid (its quite a schlep to the town centre and there is a large estate that way). I agree that Redhill may not be for you, though some of the areas between Redhill and Reigate are very nice and you'd get a lot more house for your money (around Meadvale, Earlswood, and the area around Redhill Common that estate agents now call Redgate). But none of these areas are anything remotely resenbling a village - Reigate and Redhill are very lively busy towns, Guildford is akin to a small city really. Dorking feels a lot smaller and you'd get more for your money, but it's also very 'local' (as in very few people living there moved there from London, mostly everyone grew up there and it can therefore be a bit hard to assimilate) and not exactly thriving. We moved from London to Dorking but ended up moving again to Reigate after a few years as tbh we found it really hard to fit in there, but we love absolutely Reigate. Some of the villages between Reigate and Dorking are nice (Brockham is particularly nice) but there can be a bit of a struggle with secondary school places in the villages and no guarantees what you'd get.

Redhill is bad news, with a lot of gang activity. Avoid!

You'd be better off on the Kent side for Victoria. All lines Guildford/ Godalming terminate at Waterloo and its a hour ish from Godalming villages to Waterloo as the pretty village backwaters are slow lines. Guildford is much like a smaller city. The traffic on the A3 is mostly hideous too. Have you looked in Kent?

@Thematic thank you so much..oh Gosh I must visit Reigate then you made me fall in love with it...what about schools? Have you got children that attend schools there?

@DyslexicPoster hello thank you so much for your message...this is the exact reason why I am still in doubt...Godalming and Guildford would be perfect because that is where part of my family lives but you are right the commuting is not ideal..thank God I would have to do it twice a week but still...I love Kent myself but Tunbridge Wells which is my fav seems to be too far and Sevenoaks which is also another town that I love is too expensive..any suggestions?

Sevenoaks is no more expensive than Guildford. Not relating to comment re.Redhill gang culture, asb around the MacD's and parts of Merstham.

I know you want to go further out but worth having a look at Carshalton Beeches and Epsom, which are both on the Victoria line. It's an easy drive out to Godalming, Reigate etc but an easier daily commute. Good schools and community and you'll get something in budget.

Millais used to be good, not any more though. Rife with bullying.

@crimp82 TBH all the schools here seem to be excellent, though the catchments are very small so you have to watch where you buy a house. My boys both went to Reigate Priory for primary (one still there) which we really like, though be aware that there is a plan in place to move the school which could make it unappealing for you - currently the proposed site was turned down for planning so nobody knows where they will move it to at the moment. Its a junior school fed by two different infants schools but we moved here post infants so I have no experience of either. I believe Wray Common, Sandcroft and Reigate Parish are all great primaries too. There are several good private primaries too.

Secondaries can be a pain here - there isn't a central secondary school and Reigate School (which is excellent) has a fairly defined catchment which doesn't cover the whole of town, so definitely worth checking that if you plan to move here. Other options are St Bedes which is excellent but catholic so has a very strict church attendance policy though does take C of E pupils, and Royal Alexander and Albert - a weird anomaly as it's a state boarding school that takes day pupils, but has wonderful facilities and is in a stately home. I'm afraid I have no experience of any of these other than through friends as we went private. My son is at RGS (Reigate Grammar School - don't be fooled by the name, its a private school) which is truly excellent, one of the best schools in the country, but highly academically selective and very hard to get into to be honest. There's also Dunottar, which is much easier to get into and also really lovely. We have a lot of friends there and younger DS may likely go there. Quite a few local kids also go to Caterham or Warlingham (for girls) which both run busses from town.

It's a lovely family town, very friendly, smart and middle class without being too chi chi, if you know what I mean. Most women here work and most seem quite high powered, very few trophy wives out in their sweaty betty getting their nails done. Everyone I meet seems to do something impressive for a living but everyone is quite down to earth. There are lots of sports clubs and it has the facilities of a much larger town really.

Personally I'd say Redhill isn't nearly as bad as everyone else has made out as well. We use it a lot for the facilities that are missing in Reigate and its very handy for the shops and leisure facilities like The Light (cinema and entertainment space) and the leisure centre. Its definitely on the way up as a lot of money has been invested there recently. There is definitely a much larger proportion of social housing there but there are some really nice large houses in the area between Reigate and Redhill too and Earlswood which is essentially Redhill is a lovely family area with its own primary schools. Carrington School is supposed to be really for secondary good as well.

If you're on a line where the trains stop at Clapham Junction you can very easily change there from a Waterloo train to a Victoria one

Just to correct @Thematic a little. St Bedes is an ecumenical faith state secondary school so both RC and CofE pupils have equal priority with some community places based on distance. Think you mean Woldingham not Warlingham which is a girls RC independent and runs a minibus to and fro as does Caterham , a coed independent 4-18 with its own prep. There are local standalone preps like Micklefield in Reigate, The Oakhyrst Grange, Essendene Lodge all going up to 11+ , the Hawthorns up to 13+ and Reigate St Marys which feeds RGS.

@LIZS apologies, yes I did mean Woldingham, sadly too late to edit my reply.

I believe The Oakhyrst Grange and Essendene Lodge are both in Caterham though? And Hawthorns is in the far side of Redhill. The Reigate private primaries are Micklefield as you said, and then also Reigate St Marys which is linked to RGS (though this doesn't fully guarantee a place, it just means that kids who they think are academically or sportingly suitable will be pre-selected without having to sit the entrance exam, and we do know kids who's parents sent them there assuming they'd get into RGS who didn't actually get a place at all). Chinthurst is also linked to RGS and has the same criteria but this is a lot further away in the Tadworth area.

Yes they are in Chaldon/Caterham. Hawthorns is between Bletchingley and Merstham. However plenty do travel from Reigate/Chipstead directions.

How far is too far? How about Rochester? I'm not 100% that's a fast line into London. Not a village but a very unique town. Has some nice villages around it but Strood for example isn't nice. Grammar schools in Kent. Just over a hour round the M25 back to Godalming.

Haslemere in Surrey? It's one of the most desirable places to live. Lots of very good schools. Smaller and friendly than Godalming. Fast line to Waterloo. Very expensive. In a Godalming village you could get a detached 4 bed within walking distance to schools for just under £800k and if you had time and inclination can still find cheaper house with the possibility to extend. There's rough parts even in Godalming but they well known. Mind you there's different views of rough. It's nothing like some parts of London for example.

Look at Villages around Guildford with a train station. Worplesdon, Brookwood, Shalford too.

I think overall you get grammar and cheaper houses in Kent. Villages off Maidstone?

If you are needing to get to Waterloo, many Kent trains go to Charing Cross via Waterloo East , or change at London Bridge.

Hi, moved to Godalming about a year ago, nice little town but can’t say it’s friendly. With regards to private schools, we have not liked St Hilary’s for our Son so looking and Aldro or Amesbury Maybe even Edgeborough. Wondering if Farnham would have been a better choice as we don’t commute to London. Good Luck

@FormerLondoner thank you so much. Godalming is still on top of our list since this is where my sis in law is. She seems to love it...why are you finding not friendly? We would not consider independent but being Catholic could easily consider St Edmund and St Peter as secondary so that should be fine. It is more the commuting that put me off. I am now looking at Sevenoaks and Kent Area where DD wild be spoilt for choices in terms of schools. I heard that Farnham is amazing both as a town and schools but very posh so not sure how friendly.

Thd catholic community is very friendly in Godalming and the schools are good. Apart from
my church people I have not made friends with anyone locally. My suggestion is seriously consider villages near woking, train stops at clapham. Better still
I would recommend Manning Tree on the essex suffolk boarder. Train straight to victoria