Where to move in SW London / Surrey

[allaboutmoving]

Hi there,

I'm hoping for some advice. My husband and I currently live in Wandsworth with our one year old daughter. We have lived here for 10 years and didn't think about schools before we had our little one, but now realise that we are outside of the catchment area for the good state schools in the area so private would be our only option. We don't think we can afford this, especially because we would like to have another baby in the not too distant future.

Where do we move to? We are looking for somewhere similar to where we live now (i.e. ideally a period house, 4-5 bedrooms, with a garden), and in a similar sort of area (i.e. a high street of sorts, with some nice cafes etc., but doesn't need to have everything on the doorstep). Some parks nearby would also be good. The commute is very important to us as I work on Chancery Lane and my husband is required to travel throughout the south east.

We have been looking at Kingston and Wimbledon so far. Should we be considering New Malden, Surbiton, Thames Ditton etc.? We like Richmond but it's too expensive for us. Are there any 'must see' areas and any we should avoid? Transport links / commute, and good state schools are probably the most important factors right now.

Budget is £1.2m - we are happy to do work to a property if it is the right place for us.

Thanks so much, in advance.

Does your 4/5 bed house need to be a "proper" 4+ bed house, or would you be happy to achieve that with a house that was originally a 3 bed plus loft extension? If you're ok with getting the desired bedrooms with a loft extension then that will give you more scope and options.

The issue that most people find in Kingston is the primary school catchment areas are tiny, particularly around the Canbury area which is where I imagine you will be looking. A lot of people (ourselves included, we also have a 1 year old) move to the surrounding areas (Teddington, Hampton etc) when they realise that the starter house they'd bought a few years ago is no longer in a catchment area of a school less than 10 mins walk away.

Surbiton is also lovely with a lot more trains into WAT and also across the south, but I'm not sure of the school situation because it didn't work for my husband's commute. Thames Dutton strikes me as the kind of place where you'd have to travel to Surbiton for shops, although I could be wrong. The HC line is also frequently suspended when there are issues at peak times too and starts/ends at Surbiton.

Hi OP

With your budget, you will get a lovely house in the nicer Berrylands Rds in Surbiton, or possibly in the centre, although there are very few large family homes there. Trains to Waterloo are fast and frequent.

Thames Ditton is sweet and has a nice small high street. Definitely worth a look. Perhaps also consider Cobham, Cheam, nicer bits of Sutton and Carshalton?

The issue with Surbiton is secondary schools for boys. Hollyfield isn’t particularly great, and the catchment has got smaller. Southborough is directly on the A3 and hasn’t had a good reputation although supposed to have improved. Coombe Boys not great results. For girls there are great options, Tolworth girls and Coombe Girls.

Primary schools are generally good anywhere you buy a house for 1.2m. I would think more about the secondary school you want and go there. Hinckley Wood?

Hinchley Wood

East Sheen, non-parkside towards Mortlake Station.

Another option could be Teddington. It’s got a lovely high street, is close to the river and Bushey Park + the schools are excellent. It’s zone 5 but it’s full of period architecture and more of a zone 3 villagey vibe (if that makes sense). It’s pretty pricey for zone 5, though.

New Malden is a good option too.

We moved out from between the commons to Sutton and I thoroughly recommend the area too. Sutton High Street isn’t the most glamorous but v useful (a bit like Wandsworth Town centre in that respect I suppose). The villagey bit is Cheam Village (one mile west) and between the two there’s the Landseer Conservation Area which is a lovely, leafy spot with large Edwardian properties (2000-3000sq ft+) in your budget. There are also large Edwardian ‘Windebanks’ around the Highfields tennis club in S Sutton.
If you could live with a characterful 20’s property, then you’ll have more options in Cheam Village and South Sutton (both leafy and lovely). There are tons of things to do for kids and parents (lots of baby and toddler classes, sports like rugby, cricket and numerous tennis clubs), excercise classes in Nonsuch Park, a pottery cafe, baby sessions at the cinema, but also a massive play park, trampolining, bouldering, public golf course, yoga and dance studios etc. The schools are fantastic (excellent primaries, 5x grammars + excellent non-selective secondaries).
It’s good for commuting with direct trains to Victoria, London Bridge and St Pancras. For working around the SE, it’s only 15mins to the M25 and the area is generally a lot less congested than anywhere along the Thames.

Thanks so much for the replies.

@brainstories568 We are more than happy to do an extension to any house to achieve the space we want. I’ve been concerned when looking at admissions in Kingston over the last few years that the catchment areas do seem to be tiny (& possibly getting smaller), so your point about moving further out is interesting. We definitely don’t want to move into a catchment area & then find we are outside of it by the time our daughter is of school age!

@AnneBullen from my rightmove searches it does seem as though there are limited housing options in Surbiton. The fast train would be helpful but not necessarily if we are far from the station. Secondary schools were something we hadn’t really thought about to be honest - I have naively assumed if there are decent primaries, there will be decent secondaries. That is obviously wrong so I’ll look into that, thanks for the heads up.

@JoJoSM2 funnily enough my husband & I were discussing Teddington last night! I really like it but husband thinks it’s too far out. I think we might venture there this weekend to have a look around. We hadn’t even considered Sutton and I don’t know anything about the area. However, it sounds like what we are looking for from what you say. I’ll do some further research, thanks!

Twickenham? Nineteen minute trains to Waterloo. Lots of excellent primary schools. Waldegrave School is one of the top comprehensive schools for girls in the country. Marble Hill Park is beautiful and there is the river close by. Houses close to Waldegrave are cheaper than central Twickenham.

To be honest, if you're thinking of Kingston then over the river to Teddington and Hampton isn't that much further. In some ways being that little bit further out can have benefits as you get a seat on the train and you've got the option of going via Richmond as well as via Wimbledon for when the trains are a mess, whereas once you cross the river you're more committed to going via Wimbledon.

I really like Teddington but I wouldn't want to live there as it's so linear so you'd have to pick where you lived to ensure you were still near the station, if that makes sense? You also get much more house for your money in Hampton/Hampton Hill and they all share the same secondary options anyway. There's a lot going on family wise in all of those places and ironically we've realised there's more for our 1 year old here (particularly play parks) than there was in Kingston, we've got at least 4 within a 5-10 min walk of our house. We didn't even get as far as seriously considering secondaries in Kingston but as has been said, you're very limited if you have a boy because they're all pretty much either religious, academic or single sex where Coombe Girls is substantially better than Coombe Boys. I know Kingston Academy (I think) opened up when we were living there so they might have had their first GCSE results by now. When we bought our house in 2014 we were comfortably in the admissions area of 2 primaries, by the time we moved 4 years later we were well out of the latest admissions area and whilst we initially wanted to stay in Kingston, in hindsight I'm glad we left as then we don't have to deal with the stress of tracking admissions data so closely. We are only 10/15 mins on the bus or train from Kingston centre anyway and we previously had a 15 min walk. Our next door neighbours had 3 kids aged 7-13 and had lived in the house from before having kids. They went to a primary school on the other side of Kingston as they'd got in with their first and then obviously benefitted from sibling priority, whereas 10ish years on there's absolutely no way you'd get in there from where we lived.

@jojosm2 Teddington is zone 6, as is Kingston and Surbiton. It becomes zone 5 at Strawberry Hill, Norbiton and Berrylands. Definitely do not move to Berrylands, OP!!

Is Teddington zone 6? Feels like zone 3.

www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk

Don’t know if you’ve used that website, OP but it’s good for comparing different areas.

Cheam and Sutton are zone 5 and in addition to trains, you get the back up of being a short bus/mini cab ride from the Morden tube.

If you’re checking out the neck of the woods, you can pop into Carshalton Village/Beeches too. Very pretty and backs onto the coutryside. For a large period property, you’d be a little limited but there are some on Park Hill and Grosvernor Avenue. Plenty of 20’s & 30’s stock with large garden. The primaries are great, you’re in catchment for the said 5 grammars but the non-selectives are currently ok rather than wow.

Hampton court/east Molesey may be of interest. Has benefit of being end of line so you get a seat. Ore Covid days by the time to pulled into Thames dit-on it was often full.
Surbiton would give better range of faster trains.

Hi, we are in a very similar situation with a 9 months baby girl and with hopefully another baby in the not too distant future. We are considering Surbiton but I'm now not too sure regarding schools. Where did you end up moving to? :)
Does anyone have any advice on Ham/Twickenham/Petersham/Whitton?

@ruobby

• Ham is either in the borough of Kingston or Richmond.
• Petersham is in Richmond and you could end up in a house on the flood plains, so check carefully any house you see in Petersham before purchasing.
• You will have to get a bus or cycle to Richmond station which is Zone 4 to commute into London. There are only two bus routes that regularly go through the area.
• You can cycle down the river paths to Richmond though you have to keep an eye on the tide.
• You can also cycle off road most of the way to Kingston.
• If you driving to commute outside London you won't be far from the M3 or M4.
• I know there are two primary schools one of which is CofE.
• There is an outstanding mixed secondary school - Grey Coat School - and you will be in the catchment area if you live in either area as it is on your doorstep.
• There are other outstanding secondary schools in Kingston including Kingston Academy, and in the borough of Richmond which you will probably be in the catchment area off. Richmond has changed some of their catchment criteria to ensure those living in Ham and Petersham get places.

I only know this as I was looking at moving to Ham as I use to know someone who lived there.

@ruobby We are staying in Wandsworth 🙄 We’ve moved house & have bought a place that’s smaller than our current place and is a total refurbishment job. Once we have done all of the work, it will be similar in size to our old house but it puts us in the catchment area for a really good local primary which was the draw. We haven’t focused too much on secondary schools at this stage because I still don’t think we are going to stay here forever.

We had narrowed down our search areas to Surbiton and Kingston but we just couldn’t find a house we liked in the relevant catchment area(s). Disappointing but we needed to move now for various reasons and so we have ended up staying in the same area. We are already saying we may move to Kingston when the time comes for secondary schools that’s so long in the future, who knows.

We checked out a lot of the other areas suggested but the commuting time was just too much for us in our particular jobs. I really liked the look of Twickenham but the journey into Waterloo is too long. Similarly, Ham is lovely but commute not so great.

Sorry I haven’t been able to be any help at all! Hope you find somewhere. I think we would have been happy in Surbiton but the school catchment area is trickier than Kingston as there are only a very small number of schools (unless you want to live in Tolworth / Berrylands, which we didn’t).