Calling Cambridge Mums.

[bluebear]

Can anyone tell me;

Which train company runs trains from Cambridge to London?
How much an annual season ticket might cost?
and, give advice about the better areas around Cambridge - house prices /good schools etc.

Thank you, Thank you.

You like! Good

You might want to bookmark the websites for Savills , Redmayne Arnold Harris , Bidwells and Cheffins , Bluebear. They are the agents that most frequently deal with that sort of property around here.

Shame a lot of them have already been sold: the market is quite competitive for big family houses in Cambridge, because they're in such short supply. I think you might need to make friends with some agents!

Seriously, if you do want to meet up for a coffee when you're in town, just CAT me. My DH will thank you: if there's one thing I love, it's a house hunt, and if I'm not helping someone else, there's a danger I'll be out looking on our behalf!

only just seen this, am lying in bed ill lurking on mn via my mobile.
willingham isnt all that nice im afraid, i lived in cambridgeshire for 20 years before moving back to wales in may.
also avoid, longstanton, oakington.#
swavesey isnt too bad, good school, but a short commute up the dreaded a14!
i lived in haddenham about 15 miles away from cambridge, a 20 min commute up the a10(but much longer during rush hour), nice little village, very popular as a commuter village.
villages just the other side of cambridge are quite nice.
madingley, coton etc.
you can get to the london in about 45 mins from cambridge if you get the direct train, the other stops at every single station and takes over an hour!.

SC!!!!!

Wondered where you were (well, I know where you are - wales - but you know what I mean)

Hope you're feeling a bit better. Is DD settling in now?

There are nice villages south of Cambridge but there has always been a bit of a housing shortage of good quality housing. The villages I prefer are Great/Little Shelford, Whittlesford, Great/Little Abington, Balsham and Hildersham. If you have primary age children, Great Abington School and the Meadows in Balsham are good state schools feeding into Linton Village College, which gets very good GCSE results. If you are going private there are lots of good prep schools (St Faith's, St John's, Kings, Perse Prep, Perse Girls Prep especially). The best independent secondaries are The Perse (boys at present but co-ed from 2010), Perse Girls and St Mary's.
If you want to live in Cambridge, south of the centre is generally better. I would love to live in the area around the Perse School (Luard Road) or just off Trumpington Road in Barrow Road or one of the other roads nearby but they are pricy. The best state secondaries are Netherhall and Parkside. Most state secondaries are 11-16 (though Netherhall has a sixth form) and the two Sixth Form Colleges - Long Road and particularly Hills Road are very good.
As for commuting, I commute into Liverpool St from Whittlesford, but the Kings X line is much faster and more comfortable (just under 50 mins rather than 1 hour 10 mins).

gizmo-dd is much more settled, she has more mates than i do now!

Well, dh is off for an interview on Thursday, and an estate agent is coming over tomorrow to value our current house, so fingers crossed.
The area around Addenbrooke's is now top of our list. Dh is happy cycling to Waterbeach from there (mad fool), and I can get to the station relatively quickly...I'll be so disappointed if he decides he doesn't want this job after all!

I've followed this with a mix of interest and nostalgia - I grew up in Cambridge - in the area round Addenbrookes. It was a fabulous place to be a child/teenager and if circumstances allowed I wouldn't hesitate to go back and live in Cambridge again.

I also did the commute to the City for a holiday job - I used to cycle to the station and get the train to Liverpool Street. Not sure I would be so keen on cycling now but it was good exercise.

MrsWobble - that's great to know - I grew up in a small market town in Essex and we had great problems with boredom once we were over 10...and I am a bit worried about what happens to teenagers in London (if you let them out of the house) - Cambridge must be a good medium - not too boring, not so scarey!

Just had the estate agent around - he says this house will shift quickly but has to consult his colleagues on the best price as it is the only one of it's type on the road.....fingers crossed for a good number.

I love having an excuse to buy the local property press, Bluebear. Hoping your DH has a successful interview on Thursday

How did DH's interview go then, Bluebear? Am I going to have to stop buying the Property Press?

Hey Gizmo (I've been telling dh all about you) - it's taken a few days (during which dh came down with a horrendous man flu with a 2 day fever, disorientation and hacking cough) but we've heard, on the grapevine, that the job is hanging between dh and one other, and that it's going to second interviews.
So keep buying the property press, and put your property brain onto standby!

Can I just say I wouldn't recommend Cheffins as far as I could throw them? Given we had to travel over an hour from where we were living for viewings, THREE TIMES we'd turn up for viewings to find out they'd been cancelled and nobody called us. We stopped dealing with them after that.
The other weird thing was, we expressed an interest in a house in April, to be told it had been taken off the market the day before. What had actually happened was the vendor had switched agents. We didn't pick up on this, and eventually viewed the house in July, when we bought it. Cheffins hadn't let the vendor know we were even interested - they told us they hadn't taken it off the market at all!

Thanks, MaryBS - useful info. (we had a horrid agent near here who wouldn't show me a house he knew was perfect for us, because we weren't selling our house via his agency (he said if we signed with him he would let us view the house)..grrrr

We found this site useful, though we were very happy to buy a large house in the dreaded North City.

at dreaded North Nome!

Great site, thank you.

Dh has got another couple of interviews for this job over the next couple of weeks. We are hoping to get up to Cambridge on Sunday and get a feel for the place...I'm pretty certain about being nearish the station but dh has been talking about looking at villages.
I am stressing about the details - how will I register ds with a good school (surely they'll all be full), how quickly can I find a new nanny, how will we be able to snap up a great house when we are miles and miles away, etc etc.

You'll be fine, you'll have a small army of mners working for you and your whole life will be organised for you by the time you arrive

We visited Cambridge today - didn't particularly fall in lurve with any area - we liked the houses on Lyndewood rd/Tenison Ave, but I'm guessing that they are out of our price range (haven't seen any for sale and also guess that they come up for sale pretty infrequently).
Runner up were the roads off Hills Rd, south of Cherry Hinton rd, but have only seen one of those for sale, was well within price range but needs renovating.
Ds has declared that he wants to move to Spain
We did a lot of getting lost in one way streets and pedestrianised zones too.
Dh has next interview on Weds.

Hmm...well just found a Tenison Ave house for sale - £725k - really wanted to stay under 600 so it looks like that area's out. Oh well

Which other areas did you visit?

We started at Trumpington, then along past Addenbrooke's, looked at Cherry Hinton, then back towards town centre, turned left off Hills rd opp station and looked at some back roads there, then doubled back and tried to find somewhere to park ( went past bus station twice!), ended up at Graften centre, let kids stretch their legs and had lunch, bumped into old colleague of dh's who has moved to Cambridge (and was very impressed with it), looked about the shopping areas (Lion yard etc).
Then drove down Mill road, explored the gorgeous but forbidden Tenisons and then further down Mill road, then further south and drove up and down roads off HIlls road (Glebe and Hills Ave).
Finally drove out to see the research park and looked at waterbeach, landbeach, then Histon and Impington.
At this point the children got fed up of being driven about and we called it a day.
We didn't try the Southern villages since I wanted to try to be on the Kings Cross line.
Not sure if/when we are planning the next trip - dh is not so enthused about it now - it is a good job but will be a lot of hassle and he's not sure it benefits us enough to take it (He hasn't even tried looking for a London job, which I would like him to do before we make such a big leap)

Hello Cambridge Mums and sorry for hijacking but I need your help.
Am having dd christened on Sunday just outside Cambridge (and don't live in the area) and have only just decided (derrr) that I really should get a photographer rather than try and do it myslef.
Just wondered if anyone knew of any they could reccommend who won't cost the earth?

Curses!

Missed that this had revived - am getting stuck into forelog at work before my maternity leave starts so haven't had much time to mumsnet this past week.

Notwithstanding his cold feet, good luck to your DH for Wednesday, Bluebear. Moving somewhere new is a hell of a commitment & hassle, so I'm not surprised you're feeling a bit ambilavent: have you tried putting down the pros and cons on paper? Just to try and see if the game's really worth the candle?

I think Cambridge can be particularly challenging when you do that first research trip, because you have to drive around to cover enough ground, but it's categorically not a good town to drive in. Plus the fact of the matter is that finding a good family house in Cambridge is not that easy: it's a part of the market that is chronically undersupplied. There are opportunities around Glisson/Lyndewood/Tenison Road (St Barnabus Road for example sometimes throws up better priced houses) but you're right, they're few and far between. That being said, if you decide you fancy the idea, it sounds like you won't be lacking feet on the ground via mumsnet to get things set up for you!

Good luck - keep us updated, whatever you decide.

WICGUW-i used dumbletons for my wedding photos 7 years ago, i found them very good.

Hello WICGUW

Hmmm, tricky one: I haven't hired a photographer in years for a social event - I have a few semi-professional friends who always seem to be able to take all the photographs I could desire at such things.

But I regularly use a guy called Paul Whitehouse at Michael Manni Photographic for corporate work. If he doesn't do weddings, christenings etc, he might at least be able to make a recommendation for someone in the area who could...

Hello Spacey!