Recommendations for areas to live in and around Cambridge?

[MissAnthrope]

Hi,

I am looking to move to Cambridge in the summer and was wondering whether anyone could give me any insiders info as to nice areas to live and/or places to avoid?

Mill Road has been recommended as a possible location if I were to move inner city - does anyone have any other input?

The other possibility is to move to one of the outer villages. North of the city would probably be more convenient for Monday to Friday access but I'd consider anywhere that wasn't going to break the bank and has a good primary school.

Any info that you can give me would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you

I should also add that I don't drive so will be reliant on public transport/cycling if that makes any difference.

Hi MissAnthrope: as a fellow non-driver I would say the villages are probably not a great idea for you - you'd be better off in town somewhere on a good bus route.

We live near Mill Road and like it. It's not the most beautiful part of Cambridge and not much around in the way of parks/playgrounds nearby. But very convenient, lots of small shops for practical things (unlike the main centre of the city which has lots of lovely boutiques but not much in the way of day-to-day essentials).

A lot depends on your budget, where you want your kids in school, whether you need to get to work and where that is, how many kids etc. Cambridge traffic through the city can be horrendous, though much less of an issue if you're cycling. Can you give us any more details at all?

I would live in Cambridge City if you don't drive. I live in a South Cambridgeshire village with schools and some shops in the village and although there are half hourly buses into town, it would be difficult to arrange life without a car.
Cambridge housing and house prices are very varied, so prices in some areas are very expensive - e.g. terraces near town centre/station whilst other areas are much cheaper - e.g. around the ring road. Everyone will tell you to avoid the Arbury!

Hello MissAnthrope (like the name, btw).

Weeell, where to start? If you are active and like cycling there is a ring of villages within about 4 miles that might suit you: I'm thinking of places like Girton, Coton, Histon and Milton, all of which have OK schools, and some of which have reasonable bus services. Be aware, though, that because of terrible traffic, bus arrival times can be a bit erratic!

In town, I love Mill Road, personally: lived there for years and years, but I know some people aren't so keen. Pro's: fabulous independent shops, real local character and community feel, parts of it quite convenient for station, a sensible walk into town (at least from one end!), you can find a house that won't bankrupt you. Con's: can be a bit rough at closing time, houses are typically small terraces, schools not best in Cambridge (still not bad, though).

I started to list all the residential areas in Cambridge but realised that actually there are very few you'd want to avoid, and it rather depends on what you're looking for. If you want real town centre + a bit of space(and have deep pockets!) De Freville Avenue, Tenison Road (and the surrounding areas down towards the station) or Castle Hill are particularly nice but there's a lot else to choose from!

Thanks for the replies

I'm due to attend the University in October, and so need to be able to access the centre of town. Lectures will be around the Downing St area, but my college is out to the north so there are obvious advantages to living in any direction. We really need to be no more than 10 miles out of the centre due to Univeristy restrictions, although anything more than 4-5 sounds like it would be a nightmare due to traffic.

My dd will be turning three that autumn, and it is just the two of us, so we're looking at a two bed property (rental). I would really like to find an area to settle in ready for dd starting school in a few years time. A good primary school is therefore very important in the long term.

We'd be leaving the house early in the morning, and not getting back until late so it's important that we'd be safe walking/cycling home after nursery/Uni when it's dark in winter. Anything that happens past 8pm won't really affect us too much as I don't envision having much time for a night life

Realistically speaking, we'll be spending very little time at home M-F, and we can always travel out of our locality to find things to do at the weekend. I don't have a huge budget (unsurprisingly) but there is some room for manoeuvre.

Walking/cycling isn't an issue - we live on the outskirts of a city at the moment so we're used to the distance. It is, however, nice to have the option of a bus in case of any problems.

I appear to be waffling, sorry
In summary, I don't have any ideas set in stone about what we need other than the school and the

I presume that you've checked with your college that they can't help you with family accommodation? Some colleges have some.

Newnham Croft Primary and Mayfield Primary are considered amongst the best, I believe. Can you check the catchment area for both?

Homes around Newnham Croft are likely to be more expensive; Mayfield less so, perhaps?

Aha! That sheds more light on it. I actually think (hope) you're going to have a lot of flexibility. Mill Road is likely to be a very good bet for you - there's a large amount of rental in that area, and if you stay on the town side of the railway bridge then I think you're in the catchment for either St Pauls or St Matthews, both of which are pretty good schools. Mizzan will know better than I.

Other good areas for renting something two bed and affordable would be bottom of Hills Road (Norfolk Street/Panton Street/before the railway bridge) but I'm not sure I'd recommend the new developments up there - I get the impression they are a bit isolated.

The Kite/Brunswick area (right in the middle of town, roughly between Christ's Pieces-East Road-Midsummer Common) is well worth exploring but could be pricy as is Castle Hill.

There's also a few nice streets off Huntingdon Road as you go north out of town, with the sort of thing you might be looking for: it's a bit further out, but probably quite close to your college (are you going to New Hall or Girton?) and, like most places in Cambridge, it's not a significant distance from the town centre for anyone with a bike and some energy!

That's brilliant, thank you... what a lot of great suggestions.

College accommodation isn't really an option due to accumulation of possessions/my current lease end date/cat ownership. There is also a waiting list in place, so I've pretty much discounted that as an option at this stage.

I should be able to get the catchment areas for different schools from the council's website. Having a good idea of which parts of town to start searching is an excellent start, thank you!

(I'll be attending Lucy Cavendish)

most areas are nice in cambridge...south is generally better than north. no where is very far in cambridge

Oh, thanks... will start looking south then work my way north

St Luke's primary is good and is quite close to Lucy. We used to live in town but have now moved out to a village. If your'e UG you are required to be within 3 miles anyway (10 miles for PG) - and villages are difficult if you don't drive.

The Mill Road area is nice but not particularly childfriendly and its on the other side of the main central one-way traffic loop to Downing/Lucy.

Thanks for the input Acinonyx. I have double checked with Lucy re: residential distance and I can apply for an extension to the 3 mile limit. Possibly a mature student thing? 'Tis neither here nor there however as I don't plan on going over 3-4 miles out for convenience sake.

My main concern with staying close to Lucy is that we would be by/in Arbury, which is the one place that people keep consistently advising me to avoid.

Does anybody have anything good/bad to say about Chesterton? It seems to keep popping up on rental searches.

St Lukes area borders on Arbury (where we used to live) but you don't live actually in Arbury which is quite a self-contained area. Chesterton is OK. We have friends there with kids at St Lukes. The area noth of Lucy is not arbury - up around Victoria road - that's nice.

Arbury is not so bad (but then I used to live in London so it's all relative) - but I would not be keen on the schools there.

Have you been in touch with the family services/family society at the university? They might have some advice and/or be able to put you in touch with people with good advice. The family soc has an email list that everyone can email to - maybe they could put you on it and you could ask for feedback.

I'm postgrad and work mainly from home so I don't need to be near my dept. It's worth taking bus routes into consideration. The traffic is abominable here. Any chance that you will cycle? Much more convenient and not quite as dangerous as it looks. It's practically compulsory you know I really miss it since moving out of town. I'm getting fat...

That's good to know. The catchment area map on the Cambridge City Council website is a little hard to decipher as they haven't included any street names

I wasn't aware that the University had a family society! I've just found their page and it looks like it will be very useful, thanks for the heads up.

My dislike of both traffic and extortionate travel costs will mean that we'll seldom use public transport. A combination of walking and cycling should get us by (a decision I'll undoubtedly curse in bad weather).

I'm looking to take a trip down to Cambridge next week to view a couple of nurseries. Hopefully that will narrow the search further.

Do you mind if I ask how you find it academically? I envision that balancing the demands of a small child and a full time course would be difficult at any institution, but certainly more so at Cam. Should I brace myself for the worst?

There is a single mum UG poster around somewhere - hope she can drop in.

I wasn't UG here so I base my knowledge on others and teaching first years. Others will know better. Term time is very intense - the essay-writing schedule is heavy and of course terms are shorter. I think students can get pretty stressed out - but a lot of that comes from themselves being very driven to do well.

I'd advise you to make the most of your childcare (use the max you are paying for don't go in late or pick up early e.g. out of guilt - just keep it regular) and have a good bedtime routine so you don't get too exhausted staying up all night working because dc wouldn't go to sleep.

I think for a mum, tiredness is the problem rather than time (after all, as you say - we don't really have lives in the evening to compete with study!).

The family-soc has regular events for parents and kids including a regular coffee on a Sat morning (which I can't go to as I work on Sat morning). These are good ways to meet other student parents - I made friends with another family this way.

Might I ask what your subject is?

The family society sounds as if it will be invaluable. I think that having others in a similar situation to chat to would be very helpful. There were a distinct lack of fellow parents at my interview day.

It's fair to say that all MN anonymity will be destroyed by revealing both my chosen college and subject, but... I have an offer for Arch & Anth.

I am also in Arch & Anth! I've already posted my hermes acct on here before so I may as well post it again - if you want to drop me a line its gr242(at)cam.ac.uk.

My MIL in chesteron and loves it, There are nice parks, close to the river and a tesco metro..plus you are not far from big tesco.

cycling with a child is fine....I cycle with 2 of mine on my bike.

let us know which nurseries you are going to look at...

i gather the gonville and Caius one is the best of the univeristy ones

Is it? I had a look at that one and did like it - but opted for nearer home.

What a marvellous coincidence Acinonyx. I will drop you an email when I've got a bit more time later on in the week

Thanks for the info cazzybabas, I shall add Chesterton to the list of potential areas.

Funnily enough the Gonville & Caius nursery is the only one that I've seen so far (I had a look around the day before my interview), and it wasn't for us. I'm going to visit JCN, Harvey Road and Sunflower next week.

I liked the 'homeyness' of it but we were living out by the science park and I opted for a KU nursery out there. She's with a childminder now (she's 3.5).

Hi MissAnthrope

Good to see you're making progress. Chesterton is a nice area, although the schools are a bit patchy there (I think there is a shake up proposed in the main primary school for the area). You should definitely take a look at the streets off Victoria Road and the bottom end of Huntingdon Road, because I think they meet all your criteria. They're catchment for St Lukes, which is a pretty good school by all accounts (I have a couple of friends who teach there).

I have direct (although rather out of date) experience of Harvey Road, because my DS1 went there and did very very well. It was a very nice nursery, with passably low staff turnover, good facilities and a nice balance between structured play and spontaneous fun with the kids. Good outdoor facilities too, for a central cambridge nursery. I also had a look at Sunflower for DS2 about 18 months ago and got a very good vibe: similar to Harvey Road, although the outdoor play is much more limited.

Acinonyx - What did you think to the KU nursery?

Hello gizmo

Thanks for the info re: Chesterton. I've now spent far too long reading Ofsted reports, and on that basis alone have ruled it out.

The Harvey Road prospectus arrived this morning, and it sounds wonderful (as any good piece of marketing should ). It's certainly helpful to hear some firsthand accounts of these places.

Now, if someone could please organise some nice weather for Wednesday we'd be set