Made wrong move out of London. Help me get it right second time...

[backtothegrindstone]

The title says it all really. We moved out of London nearly 2 years ago to Dorking in Surrey. Its a pretty nice town, but we realised fairly quickly that it just wasn't the right fit for us, and after a lot of soul searching, we've decided that we'd like to move again whilst the kids are still young enough to get over it, with the aim of finding somewhere we can call home for good. There's nothing massively wrong with Dorking, but neither of us can imagine spending the rest of our lives here. There's just too many small elements missing and when you add them all together it makes one big reason not to stay. But I'm terrified of moving again and making the same mistake again. And there are just so many places we could go that I just don't know where to start. I'm hoping people could give me some ideas for places that might be a good fit for us, so I can start looking again?

We were really happy in London as we had a good circle of friends and a nice house, but we didn't really go into central London anymore and spent more and more time in our local neighbourhood. As more and more of our friends started to move out we had less and less reasons to stay and wanted a less hectic lifestyle for our boys. Now we've left, we are fairly sure we don't want to move back to London, but the move out has made us realise that there are a few 'city' things we can't live without that we're just not finding in Dorking. I'm hoping we can find at least most of them somewhere a bit greener and cleaner than London.

So negatives about Dorking for us have been that it's just a little too 'countrysidey' for us. We don't ride horses or have a dog or go mountain biking and we don't really feel like we quite fit in here. We've found the high street just a bit lacking in nice clothes shops and restaurants (especially non-chain restaurants, ideally ones that do brunch!), and it feels like a lot of stuff has closed down even in the 2 years we've been here. We've also really struggled to find a suitable house to buy here (we're looking for a 4+ bedroom detached period house with a decent sized garden within walking distance of the mainline station).

Ideally we're looking to move to a reasonably pretty and leafy 'commuter' town within an hour commute of London (preferably from a station with a minimum of 2 trains an hour) where you don't have to drive to do everyday stuff. Essentials include a supermarket, some decent cafes for brunch and lunch, some nice family friendly pubs, a private gym with a pool nearby, maybe a few decent boutiques and some facilities for kids like parks, playgrounds etc. Oh, and decent schools are a must. Other awesome bonuses would be access to Uber, a reasonable selection of takeaways, some decent bars/pubs and maybe a cinema.

Our house budget is reasonably health, and we're happy to go back within the M25 as long as it still feels green and leafy.

Am I asking the impossible?

Surbiton/ Esher are great shouts - nice green spaces but still a fair amount to Lots of youngish families seem to have moved there too.

@theredbarrows I guess its because I grew up in a city and I grew up waaaaaay too quickly. I just really want my kids to be kids for as long as possible. I want them to find London for themselves when they grow up. If you grow up there, there's nowhere to aim for! That, and we were spending hours every weekend driving out of London to go to NT places and the beach and stuff and I just got fed up with it. Mostly I think we'd just been there too long. We don't go to London for work every day though so the commute isn't that much of a grind. But definitely needs to be less than an hour.

My parents live in Hurst Green, which is too villagey, but it's just outside Oxted which is nicer than I expected, has some decent restaurants, a good cinema etc and amazing rail connections to London. They are very happy there.
DH and I are however in denial and can't face leaving SE London even though we also rarely go into central except for work anymore. And we're also stuck in a flat just now too!

Beckenham / Bromley?

Depending on where in London you need to commute to - Beaconsfield, St Albans, Rickmansworth, Shenfield?

Shout out for Surbiton, lovely high street and river, Kingston has every amenity possible and lovely primary schools. There aren’t many big family homes in the centre, you may be looking a little further out towards Berrylands but it will all be very walkable x

From your description I immediately thought of Beaconsfield

Winchester - fairly interesting ‘city’ , has good schools, less country than Dorking / Guildford and probably more arty

Distilling your list, it sounds like what you really want is London - eg Dulwich. Or another SE city - eg Brighton. But most of London isn’t green/leafy, clean air, and you wouldn’t get a large detached period garden property for your (albeit high) budget. Comes down to what matters more to you.

You have a lot of things on your list essentially about a naice, independent “high street” and leisure sector: these businesses are doing badly in lots of places.

Small towns have most of your things, except the naice retail and food outlets. You could easily address this by shopping at online boutiques and socialising in your and others’ large houses

Your list:

central London commutability for work.
walking distance of mainline station.
don't have to drive everywhere.

naice clothes shops, boutiques
thriving high street
non chain restaurants
Takeaways
family friendly pubs, bars
Naice gym with pool
parks, playgrounds etc
Uber
Cinema

4+ bedroom detached period house with decent sized garden

pretty, green and leafy
“Clean” (air?)

decent (state?) schools.

friends? you imply that you don’t want to be friends with people who are outdoorsy or have horses or dogs!

Colchester's nicer than Chelmsford imho. Very nice Town centre, shopping, leisure centre, pubs, clubs, restaurants, cinema. Lovely castle with parklands in the middle of the town where they put on shows, gigs, festivals.

I was bought up in Winchester and my parents still live there. Near enough London prices but you’d get a nice place for £1.2 million and it’s everything you’re asking for!

Oh, I disagree with you OP that the London station you come into is by-the-by, when it can take AGES and be unpleasant to get around London for work.

We both work centrally and ruled out several London stations because of the London bit of the commute.

Honestly OP where is the issue? You have a huge budget you can comfortably live in Zone 3/4/5 with accessibility, nice high streets and green space:
Blackheath
Bromley
Beckenham
Tumbridge Wells
Sevenoaks

If the commute is not so much of an issue, how about Oxford or Bath? They both have lots going on and countryside on the doorstep. You could definitely find something decent with your budget.

Brighton. Swap country for beach. And has everything else you want in spades.

North - Cambridge, St Albans, Hitchin.
West - Marlow, Henley, Oxford (might be too far).
They tick many of your boxes (leafy, good schools, cafes, pubs, parks, gym etc). Shopping is a problem, they're not London and can't be because London is less than an hour away and the interesting shops are there! If you can shop after work or online perhaps they could work for you but they still might be a bit sleepy.

When you say good schools do you mean state or private? I ask as Croydon/Shirley would tick a lot of boxes but not the schools one - or not guaranteed.

The commute from Marlow is a pain. Better to head towards Maidenhead, Burnham, or Taplow and benefit from Crossrail.

I agree with bibbity you want London outside London

I’d move back to Dulwich. Brighton at a push if you can stomach the commute

@BackOnceAgainWithABurnerEmail state schools ideally. But Croydon/Brighton not high on my list if I'm honest. Was thinking more market town type places. Would like the kids to grow up somewhere a little smaller.

Another vote for Surbiton. Excellent access to central London and some really nice pubs and restaurants, with KIngston nearby for shopping.

You won’t find everything you want: if you want a leafy, bubble market town you probably won’t get the independent retail/leisure outlets.

st albans was going to be my suggestion

Market Harborough - bit further away but still a good train I think

Some will laugh I expect but Reading has 7 theatres, a lovely lido, the Abbey quarter, huge amount of things to do including a fringe festival. The Abbey and Kendrick schools and the University. Fast trains to Paddington and crossrail coming. River walks too.

It sounds like Dorking is too 'Surrey' so I don't think Farnham or Guildford are going to be the answer. I agree with the pp who said get back into Zone 3,4,5.

We are in North Hampshire, the schools are great and there's not so many Surrey people wandering around in flat caps but the town centre doesn't have the variety of amenities you're looking for.