Name this town please!

[whereishome]

Good sized market town;
Nice countryside but near large town/city;
Excellent primary schools, stretching;
Some choice of private schools;
Able to walk to school instead of drive;
Pretty town, aesthetically pleasing;
Refined feel to the area;
1 and a half hours commute to London.

Can anyone help me name this town? Or does it not exist? Thank you!

Sevenoaks or even Chislehurst! Not a market town but small quaint and feels rural. Need some ££ for them both tho...

I know I know.

Definitely Stamford, 100%

Hertford

Stroud, Cirencester, Cotswold area
Romsey, Ringwood, New Forest area
Corsham, Bath - but need a bigger budget!

Thame (gorgeous town)
Abingdon
Witney

Also Wantage and Wallingford.

Beaconsfield or Harpenden?

Leamington spa! Fits all criteria.

Colchester has good schools and bad schools, but you pay a premium on housing to be even in with a chance of getting into the better schools.

And if you have a DC that will start primary in September 2015 (I.e. born between Sept 2010 and Aug 2011), then I would not bother. Colchester is going to be 127-157 school places short for that Reception intake, and that's with shipping loads of people from the catchment areas of the 'best' schools (who are paying a premium on their housing to be in that area) to schools that are 'failing'.

St Albans or Tunbridge Wells. I was born and brought up in one and lived many years in the other. St A a really easy commute to London but TW a little less so (branch line from Tonbridge, not good for waiting on a cold night!!). Both historic (St A from Roman times and before, TW particularly from the 18th century. Both expensive for property, both with v good schools both state & private.

I had friends who moved back to the UK from overseas and initially planned to move to Tunbridge Wells, but besides the phenomenal cost of any houses anywhere near the best schools, they were seriously put off by the rudeness of the schools they did telephone in order to enquire whether there might be spaces in those schools for the school years that their children were in at the time. Apparently, being oversubscribed excuses you from being polite.

Which train station do you need to be near in London? Commuting is much less stressful if you don't need to get on a tube or bus after getting off the train.

Have a look at the book Commuterland. That will give you an assessment of most of the places listed and give you more ideas too.

Cambridge if you want to be in a city, saffron walden if you want Market town. All easily commutable to London (even by car via M11)

Another vote for Thame.

How about faversham in Kent. Small Market town,pretty. Quite a large arts movement thing going on which gives the town a nice feel. Lots of good village primary schools around ( mine go to a school with open fields all around with lambs etc). Takes an hour and 20 mins to Victoria on train ( or hour and ten on fast train). Good selective state grammar schools around. Whitstable and the coast a ten minute drive and also a ten minute drive into canterbury . Open countryside on the doorstep and not as expensive as t.wells.

Olney in Bedfordshire is lovely. Quite near Milton Keynes

Another vote for Hungerford. Have heard its a lovely place!

sloobreeus TW is not only on the branch line from Tonbridge - it has its own direct line to Ch X from Hastings. Journey around 50 mins.

How about Winchester?

Saffron Walden.

Hertford
Bishops stortford
St albans

Bear in mind also, that it may seem reasonable to have a commute of up to an hour and a half before you move somewhere, but in reality, year after potential year of a minimum of 3 hours travel a day (once you add in waiting times and getting to and from train stations), together with inevitable travel disruptions and cancellations, crowded trains and last-train dashes and price hikes for station parking and train fares, it starts to feel like a really silly idea for the person having to do it and they begin to wonder whether the whole family got a good deal at their considerable expense, rather than feeling it was a good move for everyone. Then people start looking into buying flats in London to stay in during the week...

you NEED this site commutefrom
it is basically genius, you type in your destination (place of work) say how long you are prepared to travel and your housing budget and it finds places for you!!

Had to sneak in and give you all a massive thank you and bring this thread up to 100! Wow, you people are wonderful and are amazingly helpful. Please carry on. Hels, we aren't sure where dh will be working - it will be on a contract basis and these tend to be London based. I still promise to take every suggestion seriously. I am going to write down every town tonight and wade through them. I will let you know the frequency each town comes up, purely for anyone interested. And I am certain I will find somewhere great for us to move to in August. Let's face it, if one of these suggestions isn't right, there's something very wrong with me. THANK YOU!

Ipswich.
Bury st Edmunds.
Hadleigh.
Beautiful villages surrounding.
Suffolk is a lovely place to live.