Where to live within 2 hours of Nottingham

[Kittley]

Can anyone please recommend some areas to move to within 2 hours drive of Nottingham with good access to countryside, a train station with good links to a big-ish city, budget to buy a house is up to £300k, ideally a bit diverse with good amenities. We don't want to wait to live in the city centre and prefer to be in a quiet residential area but somewhere where there's still stuff going on. DH and I permanently work from home but needs to be close to Nottingham to be near DH's mum. We don't have kids. Thanks

Newark

if you look at the area between nottingham & derby, it has great train connections to london (HS2 should stop there) and good countryside.

south-east of nottingham is posher (and more expensive) but there are fast trains from grantham.

north west of nottingham (towards the peak district) is wild country rather than farmland, and less trains.

Agree with @parietal . Around M1 junction 25 is excellent for commuting, bang in between Nottingham and derby, easy access into Nottingham or derby city but at same time on green belt so can feel rural. Depending on your budget look at ockbrook, dale abbey, Risley, Breaston, draycott. There's a train station 10-15 minutes away at long Eaton.