Edinburgh people - hopefully for the last time - can you tell me about these areas..

[fairylights]

hello again,
some of you will probably be thinking "has she not got somewhere to live yet?!" -apologies
so here we are in Edinburgh on our last house-hunting trip where we HAVE to find somewhere to live as we will shortly be homeless.
Its been a bit depressing to realize how little we will get for our money either renting or to buy, or how far out we will have to live to get what we are after..
anyway, if you know the following areas could you give me a quick summary of what they are like/what kind of community is there? Much appreciated..
Willowbrae/Duddingston: seems very residential withour much going on but we love it being by Holyrood park. Is it a trek to town? Parsons green primary looks good - anyone know about it?
Broughton: a tiny place we could rent here but would tide us over before buying.
Buckstone: have had lots of opinions on this already but any more welcome. House/school ideal but i am worried that i will feel isolated and miles from anything being a SAHM with 2 pre-schoolers.
Newington/Blackford: house to buy here, and having looked around the area this would seem to be the kind of area we would like to live in and its (just) in the Sciennes catchment. Its one road away from the Kings Buildings and not entirely sure about how "nice" the street is (can't believe i am sounding so snobbish, sorry).

thanks!

bump..

Hi there!

Newington/Blackford - great area! I live near Kings buildings - but on a "nice" street. TBH the whole area round there is nice so I think you would be okay (and I think I know the streets that you mean). Alas we are just out of Sciennes catchment so are reluctantly going to move house soon.

The only downside of the area is tha students parking during the day - I often can't park anywhere near my street during term time.

My other choice would be Buckstone - it really isn't as far out as you think. You can walk to Morningside pretty easily - and there are buses straight into town.

hi meep -thanks for that! I have seen you are a great source of wisdom on edinburgh threads
The street in newington is Rankin Drive. Are you planning to move into the Sciennes catchment? Or elsewhere?
Thats reassuring about Buckstone.. really the house we have seen in there is perfect apart from a pretty small garden and it seemed a long way from anywhere but, as you say, it probably isn't really.
I think i am just having to readjust my thinking to living in a capital city - currently we live in a small midlands city and have a large and beautiful 4 bed victorian terrace house so everything we have seen here just seems very different.
But I think the benefits of living in edinburgh will outweigh all of that in the long term..

also, random question but does Sciennes have a swimming pool?! something i read made me think it does but website doesn't mention it.

No idea about the swimming pool but Rankin Drive is nice.

There's a swimming pool on Warrender Park Rd, it's closed for repairs just now but about to re-open.

Noone can put themselves in your shoes. Why dont you rent somewhere you can afford and take it from there?

You will be better off taking your own counsel. And it might be less stressful for you.

Second Aliarse, but re your concerns about being lonely SAHM in Buckstone, there are a large number of mums there that either don't work or work p/t and consequently there is a big network of Mother & toddler groups at Fairmilehead, a toddlers group at St Fillans and our school nursery ( I'm at Pentland I guess you would be at Buckstone) has social gatherings and the school gates are sociable. Plus only a short bus ride away from Morningside with loads of shops, restaurants and additional activities at Eric Liddell centre.

Rankin Drive is fine, is just beside us.

thanks all aliarse i think you are right, we have to work it out for ourselves.. we would be very happy to rent if anywhere were suitable but nothing has come up that would suit us or that we can afford and we have to consider schools as a major priority and we don't want to have to move our ds (who will be school age) from one school/area to another if we can help it, having just moved him 300 miles!
Buckstone is looking most likely at the moment although i am still not totally convinced. think looking at the school tomorrow will probably decide it for me!
fanjo: we went to see the rankin drive place and it would have been fine but the house was a mess - had been converted and added to and done really badly which was a great shame, i had almost moved us in there in my head!

That is a shame..there are almost always a few houses on the market in that area though!

Really within Edinburgh, is nowhere you should feel isolated, bus service really good once you have timetable and if you don n't mind changing, you can get from one side of city to other with no real issues.
And is lovely city, fun to live in, has issues like any other place, but great place for kids/children. Agree with Aliarse tho' find your own way, will be worth it!

Hi Fairylights

Willowbrae/Duddingston We used to live there. Some lovely houses and Parsons Green primary is great. There isn't much going on community wise that I could see but lots of other families there so you can build your own network up through nursery and school mums. It is fantastic being so close to Holyrood Park and we still spend a lot of time there. The loch is great for going to feed the ducks and swans and we would often walk there and up the Royal Mile to town. Very quick and easy to get to town by bus or car and as above fine to walk to when weather is good. Drawbacks are that it doesn't really feel like it has a 'centre' or hub like Marchmont/Stockbridge, just some shops dotted about the place and a Morrisons supermarket. We spent a lot of time going down to Ocean Terminal. Secondary school is Portobello High and it should be getting rebuilt soon.

i lived in the far end of meadowbank for a while and found willowbrae to be a sort of strange area between 'town' and portobello. i'd mostly go down to porty.

but if you mean duddingston more round towards niddrie then that is a strange area where it goes from very nice to not so nice VERY suddenly.

Newington/Blackford Nice areas, don't know the street you're talking about but nice part of the city. Sciennes does have a swimming pool but so do quite a few primary and secondary schools in Edinburgh. Please don't get too hung up about Sciennes, in both mine and some other parents opinions it is overrated. The class sizes are big, it's a big school for the little ones and I know from someone who teaches there that the teaching staff are not happy.

Broughton Do you mean around about Broughton Street?

Buckstone I think I've given you my opinion on this before, fine but not for me and I prefer Blackford/Newington. You would prob be better off with Willowbrae area as same sort of set up but in better location IMO.

Which bit of Broughton? Can you give me a street (or one nearby) as it's close to me. It's confusing because there's Broughton Street (fab) and then the area around Broughton primary school (also fab but different - great school) - they aren't hugely far apart but different in feel

Okay - because I'm on a roll...

Broughton Street - loads of cafe's, quirky clothes shops etc. VV handy for town (three minutes walk from Princes Street via the back of John Lewis. Good schools locally- St Mary's on East London Street and Broughton Primary about five minutes walk away. Broughton Street used to be the gay centre of Edinburgh and is non the worse for that - ie loads of good coffee, cafes. Also LOVELY park for kids just off Broughton Street. Very central, lots of character - love it. (Can you tell I live nearby?). Difficult to find anything resembling a 'house' uless you are minted - mainly flats.

Broughton area (more general) - lots of new developments. No idea of sense of community but have several friends who live in the areas off Broughton Road and are v happy. Very close (7 minute walk) from all amenities listed above. Also close to Botanics, Tesco etc.

Meant to say that if you're looking just to get a feel of the city then if St Mary's on East London St. has a large catchment area because it's catholic (though loads of non-catholic kids) so if you want to live centrally then moving to Broughton area and enrolling kids at St Mary's means you might not need to move them later on when you buy.

Totally depends whether you want to live 'in' the city (Broughton) or or the outskirts (which in Edinburgh aren't that far away!).

ok in the space of the last few hours a new place seems to have appeared online that is in Trinity/top of Inverleith row for sale which would suit us great. Needs a load of work but for its price we could afford to do that.
Feels so much more central (compared to Buckstone) and we went down to stockbridge after to get some food which is indeed lovely.. (very impressed too by the huge amount of amazing charity shops!).
The house is in the catchment for Wardie primary that also looks good according to my brief online research..
anyway we are going to see it in the morning if at all possible having had a good nosey around the area this evening.
anyway probably time to take aliarse's advice and work things out for ourselves but i'm still open to anyone who knows anything about the area...
thanks again

ps Zippy thanks so much the comprehensive low down on Broughton! the place we looked at was on one of those new developments you mentioned and frankly teeny tiny so we decided against it anyway. But the house i have just mentioned in my last post isn't a million miles from Broughton anyway and it does look a fab area

ps anyone know anything about Wardie or Trinity nurseries? (I know they aren't attached to the schools). ta

wardie primary v good, i used to live just down from it, there is a nursery i think in the church just round the corner, hold on

here you go there is another nursery nearer ferry road, but am not sure of the name.

another one

thanks primrose, I am going to try and visit them today. Did you like living in that area?

Hmm, as a parent in the Sciennes catchment area I am not too thrilled to hear how rubbish it is and how the staff are not happy.

especially since that's where we aspire to, we are not at all sure DD will be going to mainstream school.