Anyone live near WINCHESTER - want to move house!

[Nicdigby]

Hi there,

With two small children it's time to move out of London. I would really appreciate your advice for nice places near Winchester that I should start looking for a house. I don't want to be somewhere really urban again, but at the same time I don't want to have to drive to buy a daily paper and pint of milk.

I've got fantasies about my kids playing safely outside away from cars, and neighbours asking you round for coffee while the children play. Maybe a few interesting shops. Nice countryside nearby. Things for boys to do!

The key things are:

1. DH needs to commute to Waterloo every day
2. Looking for a 4+ bedroom house with a large garden, away from main roads and traffic
3. Looking for decent state primary schools
4. Looking for a good sense of community, friendly people, with toddler groups etc.

Am I going to be able to move somewhere like this? I was thinking that Micheldever Station is a good station for DH to commute up to Waterloo daily - does anyone have experience of this, or this area, or similar recommendations with about an hour or less to Waterloo?

All information gratefully received. Anything will be useful. Once I've got your advice, I'll pop down next weekend and sort everything out. (Anyone selling property near a good school give me a shout).

Thanks

Nicola

Hi Nicola
I used to live in that area - a village called Goodworth Clatford. It has everything you need - a village shop (community owned with Post Office), a village hall with a tennis club and something on every day (pilates, yoga, am dram, bridge, professional theatre shows, music evenings, ballet and toddlers club) - even thriving scouts and brownies troops.

The school is in the centre of the village and people fight to get their kids in.

2 pubs (one with really good restaurant and one an old fashioned pub).

A lovely community - I miss it like crazy - we moved for husbands job. There is a really lovely bunch of perople there.

DH used to go to Andover to catch train to Waterloo every day - about 10 mins drive.

Micheldever is sort of split into 2 areas - the train station is on one side and the village on the other side.

I could wax lyrical about GC all day (we have rented our house out there as it was my forever house but not sure if DH's job will ever take us back there or not) - but there are some lovely villages around Winchester as well.

I would advise spending some time driving around - definently try to get a village where there is a local shop and some sort of village hall so you get to meet people.

Happy to give you any other info about the area if you want.

Good luck

Hi WkDSM.
I've just looked up the commute from Andover - about an hour and a quarter + the drive to get to the station. How did your DH find it? I suspect that it might be pushing the boundaries of tolarance for my DH!

Hi
It was about 8 mins drive to the station - DH had a scooter so he used to drive that in and park for free - he had a shower room at the office and so used to get changed there (preferred to travel in civvies and change into suit at office - weird but there you go). He had a 10 min bus ride or 15 - 20 minute walk the other end and found it fine.

We moved from central London to the country and it is a big step change - I would really recommend making a note of all the 'must haves' and driving round the villages making notes accordingly. Score them! Some of the villages are lovely but have no social centre or shop - look super but would not be convenient for example in the big snows we had last winter. The house up the half mile private drive - lovely but how are you going to get to know the neighbours and you'd probably end up driving everywhere. Winchester I always found a bit over rated (ready to be flamed) - to me it was a typical town with a few special bits (Cathedral, nice High Street etc) thrown in. Bear in mind that the traffic around central Winchester is quite bad (and a long one way system) - especially in rush hour. Andover has a plethora of supermarkets (I always used to say you could buy anything you needed in Andover but you would not necessarily buy all your clothes there).

Nowhere is perfect - and luckily people want different things. Stockbridge is very nice - more a market town with a nice High Street - about 10 - 15 mins drive from Winchester and the same to Andover.

As I say - lots of lovely villages but you need to pick the ones that tick your box. There are some nice villages out towards Basingstoke as well - a drive in and park as in a much larger town but very good connections from the train station.

I would recommend seeing if you can get someone to babysit the kids for a weekend, book a hotel Saturday night and spend 2 days driving round the area getting to know the villages and areas a bit.

Hi, thanks for the information, brilliant, thank you. We are going down this weekend - have got the Saturday overnight babysitters booked! But wanted some pointers rather than random driving round!

lots of information about Winchester on a couple of threads in education a few months ago if you do a search.

The one thing that I'd caution about, as far as commuting to London is concerned, is to check how easy it will be to get to a mainline station and the cost/availability of parking, or the availability of public transport to the station.

I live very close to Winchester station, but for quite an area around that the only street parking is for residents only. Whenever I walk through the station car park (usually in the middle of the day) there are no spaces available.

When you're down here, it might be worth getting info on bus services from areas that you're interested in.