Suggested areas to buy a house?!?!?!?

[reallyjustme]

Hi, I hope you can help. We are moving from Birmingham to Gloucestershire. We need to live within about 10 miles of Gloucester Royal Hospital and in the direction of Cirencester. We have no idea about where to start looking for a house and I am hoping you can help. We have an almost 3 year old son and a 6 month old daughter. We are looking to buy the 'forever house' to see us through junior and senior schools. I was wondering if someone could suggest some areas that we could look at. We obviously care about the state schools, we'd like to be quite rural (I think) but if this is totally out of our price range (approximately £400K for a 4+ bed house is our budget) we would like a small town. We're likely to go for somewhere that is a nice area but just outside the really 'hot' areas so we get a little more for our money. Can anyone suggest anywhere to start looking please?

Churchdown just in-between Cheltenham and Gloucester is a nice village and I think has good schools, also access to both cities and open countryside. Charlton Kings outside of Cheltenham is also a nice area with good schools. Stroud is about 10 miles away, I know not everyone loves it, but I expect it would be fine, and probably tick quite a few of your boxes. There aren't actually a great deal of places on the route between Cirencester and Gloucester, so I guess it depends how rural you would like to be?

Stroud?

Charlton Kings has a good secondary school - Balcarras. Only one grammar in Cheltenham - Pates. Two in Stroud and 4 in Glos.

We live south of Glos and you get a lot more house for money (4 bed = £250K) than you do in Cheltenham.