S/W Cambridge villages - Tell me about yours...

[serendipity81]

Thinking of moving to a S/W Cambridge village. We're quite familiar with the area but only as visitors. Can you tell us a bit more about your village on a personal level?
What's it really like to live there? People, activities, traffic, pubs, schools etc.

You could try posting on Cambridge forum - but here goes.
I live in a large village south of Cambridge. It has a mix of housing from mediaeval farmhouses to modern estate homes. There are three state schools covering ages 4-16 (after that you have to go into Cambridge) Two out of three were OFSTED outstanding and although I've not known of a local not getting in to the schools, there's a considerable number of pupils coming in from out of county.
Three pubs - two doing restaurant type food, one Indian restaurant and a Chinese takeaway. One quite well stocked mini supermarket, several hairdressers, beauticians, newsagents ...
Traffic in village is calmed, road travel into Cambridge slow at peak times. Half hourly buses during day.
Mixture of people - real locals, lots of science park workers and quite a number of London commuters. Pretty well all strands of society.
The two villages nearest to us (and in same secondary school area) are also very nice, but less well served by amenities - just primary school, one pub, one shop sort of places, but both have good community feel.
Lots of activities from pre-school to adult. Sports centre at secondary school.

ah, mine is a north-east one.

Thanks Lilymaid any chance you wouldn't mind actually saying which villages you're talking about?
I'll have a look for the Cambridge forum too.

What's it like ChasingSquirrels? We're open to suggestions :)

Swaffham Prior - very small, I think around 800 residents;
1 pub
1 primary school - 4 classes, approx 100 kids
1 village hall
no shops etc.

Next village (Burwell) is much bigger
5 pubs
1 primary school (60 intake per year)
shops
hairdressers
takeaways
lots more going on

When on maternity leave I wanted to move to Burwell, but now I am back at work I am happy in our village.

A lot of people commute into Cambridge for work.

I would guess Lilymaid is talking about Linton. Am I right?!

I love a good quiz! I think I know where Lilymaid lives....

We live in Great Shelford/Little Shelford/Stapleford area.

Reasonable mix of housing but many that are way, way out of our reach!

Fairly high prices for Cambridge IMO, due to Shelford station which is on the Liverpool St line (not express though).

Don't have children at school yet but there are 2 primaries

Gt Shelford is one of few Cambridge villages that has a true "centre"/high street which was a major draw for us.

Has a co-op (shortly also a Tesco Express unless the local revolt bears fruit) Hairdressers
Boots
Banks/Cash machines
Great Indian& Chinese Restaurants that also do Take Away + Chip Shop/Chinese Takeaway

We love it

My cover has been blown!

I think on the whole, they're all quite nice, aren't they? Basically, your average Cambridge village is going to have a good school, a restaurant / take away or two, some kind of shop, some kind of pub or equivalent, some kind of post office, probably a counter in a shop, quite possibly a business centre, etc etc. Mysteriously, they all seem to have hairdressers as well - I just can't fathom who on earth is having their hair cut at all these hairdressers.

There are some really little villages that have very few facilities, though - Kingston comes to mind. But on the whole, they're really much of a muchness.

I live in Milton, and it's lovely but North and no use, but we're got 5 hairdressers/beauty salons for 4000 residents.

Thanks all, every little bit of info helps. See you down the hairdressers some time .

The thing that varies wildly is the bus services. We get one bus an hour, but it's very reliable and goes to sensible places. My colleague up in Histon has a bus every 10 minutes. Some people seem to have almost no bus service.

Yes, definitely think about the buses, especially if you want DC to get around independently either now or soon. I've never lived anywhere with such weird patchy inconsistencies in its public transport. Even within the city you need anecdotal evidence to know which routes say they run every ten minutes and mean it, and which routes are more like Waiting for Godot.

The parking in Cambridge city centre is both expensive and hard to find, so it can be very frustrating if you're dependent on a car to get into town - hence the emphasis on buses / trains to get in.

I used to live in Stapleford. A wonderful village, but couldn't afford to buy and didn't want to rent forever so ended up moving back 'home' to Birmingham.

Stapleford is practically Shelford and there's a station, shops etc. It's a very short trip into Cambridge and I used to drive to Saffron Walden for work which was also totally do-able.

Sawston is very close and has a lovely Chinese (Jade something - unsurprisingly...) and there's an absolutely wonderful Chinese in Shelford - or at least there used to be...

Not far to Waitrose in Trumpington either

Sorry this is so food-skewed!

Meldreth and Melbourn are lovely, and Meldreth has a station on the London-Cambridge line. Each has very good primary school, Melbourn has secondary school. About 6 decent pubs, lovely Co-op, excellent butchers, Indian and Chinese takeaways, loads of hairdressers, barbers, leisure centre, several playgrounds, and toddler groups. Also a thoroughly nice sense of community in each village (they are sort of 'twin' villages).