Nice villages in Cheshire? Maybe Lancashire??

[FrankieChesca]

My DH is working near Manchester Airport so we are having to up sticks again!
I have 2 DC, one 5 at school and one 3 at Pre school both boys. We live in a lovely village near Winchester , have loads of friends here so I'm really looking for something similar up there.
The school that DS1 goes to is a small village primary of around 170 pupils which we can walk to. I am planning a reccy at the end of September, maybe somewhere like Lower Whitley?? Don't want anything too snobby though!!
As The airport is south of Manchester, am I right in thinking Lancashire would be too much of a commute?? Thanks in advance for your help!!

Antrobus is lovely but depressingly remote. Means you will be a permanent taxi. Other villages including mine (which we have spoken about by pm) and Chelford which I know slightly have better public transport links.

We are not in catchment for any CofE schools so that wasn't an issue. The councils (CWAC and East Cheshire respectively) publish the criteria for each school though and an anonymised report on who got in (eg there were 32 applicants for 30 places and the cut-off came in criterion E, distance not in catchment 1.3 miles). Church schools can sort of set their own within reason but you can see whether it matters. I know that a particular CofE school near us is never oversubscribed anyway; it's just the local school for people.

It depends which villages closer to Chester, e.g. Tarporley is far more expensive whereas once you get into the likes of Waverton and Christleton (borderline being Chester suburbs as much as villages now) it does get cheaper. I wouldn't want that commute to the airport every day though.

One thing that did occur to me is whether the style of house/garden size is a big factor. For example, if you were looking at Bollington, there are lots of modern houses with good size gardens, as well as a good selection of pretty cottagey style houses but these tend to have smaller gardens. If you went to Antrobus there are more 'country cottage' type houses with big gardens, but other (potential) downsides like remoteness.

Also you'll find drastically different prices so what you need/budget might influence things. You'll find that villages with Northwich as their closest town are cheaper than those with Chester, Knutsford, Wilmslow or Manchester more accessible.

I'm in the antrobus and Whitley area, though I actually live the other side of the M56. I would say that neither antrobus nor Whitley have enough going on. The pub in lower Whitley for example used to be wonderful but was taken over and is now closed every time we think to go there. Appleton thorn is villagey and has a good primary, a pub and village hall but no shops. There is a young offenders in the village which seems to depress the house prices but personally it wouldn't bother me because in the few occasions somebody has escaped, they've hardly hung around the village!

Stretton and Appleton are lovely. Stretton has a good church of England school, 2 pubs, doctors and small shop but the a49 runs through it. We used to live there and loved it for all of the open space and sports fields plus access to the motorway. In my opinion you can't go wrong in that area. Also look at the village of Hatton nearby. There is a great community there though only a pub and nothing else

Actually if you tell us what sort of house you want and what your budget it we can be more help?

Macclesfield is lovely (where I went to sixth form) but I would look at Gawsworth. It a beautiful little village and I would love to live there I we weren't settled here.

We're in east Cheshire which is easy for the airport. We're in mottram in longdendale and it's right on the edge of the Pennines.

My DH is renting a flat in Chinley near the peaks and says the commute can be a bit of a nightmare.

Our budget is anywhere up to £425K, it seems to vary massively what you can get for that. I'm pretty much open to any kind of property, we are in a period house at the moment, and its not all it's cracked up to be!
I'm really looking forward to coming up to have a look now, I'll have an idea of what I'm doing!! Thank you everyone!

By the way if the Siemens your DH is working at is the one I am thinking of I think it is on the Princess Parkway v close to Manchester city centre rather than the airport. That is still nearish the airport,probably 5 or 6 miles, but isn't actually in the airport vicinity.

In that cases villages with easy access of the M56 would be best.

Also just remembered Thelwall. Cute and countryish but also near Stockton Heath and Lymm for some life and shops. Don't know about schools there though.

Right so armed with a bit more information I'll recommend Grappenhall Village or Appleton or Frodsham.

Both Grappenhall and Appleton are outer suburbs of Warrington, which is actually my home town and has little going for it apart from the access to fantastic motorway networks which get you OUT towards all sorts of much better places. They are both within walking distance of Stockton Heath, which has nice restaurants and shops.

Grappenhall is a very old village with a quaint cobbled centre, church, primary school and two pubs. It also has a really great community centre with good sense of atmosphere and a sports centre nearby which was recently revamped. It is currently within catchment for Lymm High School, which is highly regarded. It's the sort of community where kids play in the street on their scooters and the traffic is accordingly slow. We lived there for a while and wished we could have stayed.

Grappenhall is a large area and I'd concentrate my search in the area of Bellhouse Lane/Sharon Park Close/St Wilfreds Drive (have a look at the map). The other side of the A56 is less favourable.

Appleton is regarded as a bit posher I suppose, and is spread over a wider area from 'old' Appleton around Windmill lane (£££££) to 'new' Appleton closer to the M56 (several newbuild estates centred around lots of open space/cricket and football pitches).

Frodsham is further out (about 20 minutes from the area of Warrington I am describing) but it has a real community feel, great shops, pubs, restaurants and a lovely park called Castle Park which has just been done up. The house prices are great and there's a wide variety of property styles for your budget. In general you would want to be north of the A56 which runs through.

As an aside, have you considered the Wilmslow area? It's very pricey and you don't get much for your money but it reminds me much more of Hampshire (I was at University in Southampton and know Winchester reasonably well).

Also, Knutsford is wonderful and the only reason we discounted it was because the high school doesn't have a great reputation. In every other respect it is great and even has a direct rail line to London, with Tatton Park at the end of the high street.

I used to live in Knutsford until 6 years ago, and have also lived in Timperley. It can take an hour and a half on a really bad day to drive to Manchester. Coming home, it could take well over half an hour to get from the M56 at Bowdon to home, due to queues on the A556 Chester Road.

You would be better being a little further out, but having good access to the M56 - so Stockton Heath etc rather than, say, Mobberley. Then you wouldn't get snarled up in the commuter traffic trying to get to/from the motorway.

The catchment area for the grammar schools in Altrincham ends somewhere along Mereside road - the road that goes down from the bp garage towards Knutsford. That's why houses on the Crosby estates below Langham Road in Bowdon are at least £100k more than a similar house in Knutsford.

Knutsford to Chester takes about an hour in rush hour traffic - that was leaving at 7am to start in Chester at 8am. I used to work near to Asda in Hulme/Moss Side, and it used to take me at least an hour to get to work - involving going through the lanes to Wilmslow, A34 by-pass, dropping down on to Princess Parkway, and then going around the other side of the Southern Cemetery to avoid all the sets of traffice lights on Princess Parkway. If anything, going home was worse, and I often used to come off the Chester Road to go through Ashley, and then skirt around Rostherne and Tatton Park. It was even worse one year during the flower show at Tatton, when they directed traffic around the lanes that local people use

Tbh, I don't think that it will be easy to find somewhere that is both ideal to live, and ideal for travelling.

Good luck with your search.

I live where you're looking and the schools little Leigh primary and lower Whitley are fantastic. dp is in mcr city centre in 40 mins. council tax is high though!

We have decided to centre our search in the south west of Manchester from Knutsford to Chester. In my research I've not found a bad school yet, so it looks good!! DH likes the idea of Delamere. We have lived in Sheffield before and loved it, there seems to be some much more to do with kids up North than down here, I think we rely too much on good weather!!
I'll keep you posted on how we get on!

between Knutsford and Chester there are loads of nice small villages, most with v well regarded secondaries. There are two obvious ways to narrow it down: nearest secondary and where you want as your nearest town.

Nearest town = Northwich, Frodsham, Warrington are cheaper than if your nearest towns are Chester, Tarporley or Knutsford (Tarporley isn't a town but a large village, but acts in a similar way as a hub).

Secondaries: Christleton (SE outskirts of Chester) well regarded, Helsby well regarded, Tarporley well regarded, Northwich ones I don't know, Knutsford isn't raved about.

We've visited quite a few of these villages so if you have one or two in mind drop me a PM - I might be able to give you a little info - what's there, how busy the roads are etc.

Good luck

I'd steer clear of Helsby for reasons mentioned earlier

delamere is lovely- Kingsley is great with good acess to m56

we have just bought and had Kingsley in our search area so if you like a property 4+ bed I may well have viewed it.

Tarporley is lovely but it will add 30 mins+ to commute (we nearly bought there but were gazumped though on realising the reality of the commute thank god we didn't)

with Tarporley Wettenhall etc it's the traffic lights+ farm traffic+ rural traffic which makes a short distance take a long time

You want to be aware of where the flight path is. Bit of a no brainer if your DH is working at the airport, but there are nice villages nearby that really suffer as a result. I couldn't live in Knutsford because of it.

I also think a lot depends on your budget. The South Manchester commuter belt area isn't the cheapest. Schools in the area are pretty much all decent.

I agree with RCheshire when she suggested High Legh, Chelford, Prestbury, Over Peover, Mottram, Alderley Edge, Dunham Town, Antrobus, Great Budworth as places that sound like they would suit you. But be warned they are expensive!

Delamere is a bit of a trek from the airport if I'm honest, but its nice.

You want to be really aware of the traffic black spots in the area as in rush hour there are places which although close on paper actually work out to be quite bad for commuting. We live not far from the airport; the M56 into Manchester crawls in the morning's rush hour - coming in from Chester is a good old way as a result.

We're in South Manchester now, quite close to the airport. I don't really know the little villages beyond Knutsford towards Chester but as everyone says, it depends on what kind of property you're hoping to get for your budget, whether schools are more important than the commute, and how remote you want to be. Generally speaking schools in Trafford are excellent, better than those in East Cheshire (although you need to do your homework for specific schools) so for instance in the list of villages referred to above, Dunham comes within Trafford, as does Timperley / Hale / Altrincham etc but Knutsford comes under East Cheshire and Lymm is different again I think.

The surrounding roads / motorways do get extremely busy so its worth having a trial run at rush hour before making any decisions.

Good luck!

Sorry also meant to say that we lived in north Manchester / Lancashire for quite a while, and there are some lovely villages north of Manchester too - with a real Lancastrian community spirit. House prices are generally much cheaper than South Manchester / Cheshire. The commute to Manchester airport in a morning wouldn't be too bad (although it would be busy) but the M56/M60/M61 out of Manchester are notoriously bad in the evening.

If you wanted to have a look at lancashire then I can recommend the 'saddleworth' villages. The commute is doable although the M60 can be like a mini M25 at times. No airport noise to contend with and just at the foot of the pennines. Uppermill, Delph etc are lovely. They come under the Oldham postcode but dont let that put you off!

Well to throw you all a curve ball, my dh has been talking to some people he works with, and they live as far south as wrexham and say its only just over an hours drive, which he is fine with. Does anyone have any idea what Crewe and Nantwich are like? It's quite staggering the difference in properties we could afford that far South!

Wrexham only an hours drive? Err... yeah ok... What time of day are they travelling? Its an hour in good traffic.

Crewe and Nantwich have some nice villages round them, but personally having lived in the area my whole life would not want to be commuting that distance on a daily basis.

My Dad did it for a while but eventually we moved as it was too much, and my soon to be be BIL is doing a similar commute at the moment and is struggling with it.

I have a friend who lives in Holmes Chapel (towards Crewe) and loves it - quite a large village but good schools, village-y centre, good transport links.

I'm a commuter - I do a 120 mile round trip each working day and have been doing it for the best part of 10 years now. Its worth thinking about what HmmThinkingaboutit says if you think the commute would get your husband down eventually. For me personally, our home / community / lifestyle is my first priority and I would gladly do a bigger / longer commute for the perfect house / schools / location. Its all very subjective isn't it?

We moved locations about 4 years ago - only about 40 miles from where we were living previously and I had a vague idea about the area, but would recommend you rent to start with, get a feel for the area and make a firm decision once you've had chance to live locally for a while.

Good luck, its a daunting decision!!

Sandbach is lovely. I didn't have DC when I lived there but I imagine the schools are good. It has easy access straight onto the M6 at Junction 17 but when I worked in Manchester I would go the back way through Holmes Chapel so avoiding any motorway hideousness.
Or Haslington near Crewe. My friend has 2 children at school there and is very happy.

I'd imagine you'd get more for your money in Crewe than Nantwich. Nantwich is prettier and more on a par with other places you've mentioned so far. I have lived in Crewe and would think you'd get better schools in surrounding villages but I don't know as haven't looked into it. If you think Bollington is too big then Crewe will definitely be too big.

Hi, before we settled on Bollington, we looked at Holmes Chapel which we liked but couldnt get a school place and we loved Sandbach, but quite a long way out. Lovely villages around Macclesfield include Sutton and Langley, but they are out in the peaks and could be a problem in winter. We really didnt get Knutsford at all, sorry, we went to park and you could almost see whites of pilots eyes as the planes went over, seriously noisy.