Areas In Buckinghamshire With Fast Connection Into London and Fruit Markets?

[Confusedhousehunter22]

We've been HH for over a year but haven't made any offers. We've narrowed our search somewhat but we're still a bit all over the place. I'm hoping this thread will help me articulate requirements and contributions will point me in the right direction. Of course our search is peculiar to us and some requirements might not resonate with you, so please ignore if so.

SW Hertfordshire is my ideal area because I'm a bit familiar with it as I lived in NW and North London before moving to Central London recently; unlike Bucks. So Potters bar would've been ideal for prices, fast connection to London, easy drive into North and Central London and important to me easy access to Dalston market for cheap fruit and veg which is a huge part of my diet. However, in terms of non fee paying ability testing schools ie Grammar, the choices are not as available as in Bucks. Herts has a consortium for super selectives.
Buckinghamshire has a general grammar system ie selective but not super selective which is what we want; but on the other hand is further away from London and not as familiar. Great schools but Amersham seems to have the fastest connection to London but I wasn't thrilled. We visited Great Missenden at the weekend and Prestwood seemed nice, but again a long drive into London. The closest fruit and veg market I'm aware of is Southall but it has limited options of fruit and veg.

I seem to be looking for ethnic markets like Dalston, East Street, Whitechapel or Queen's (Upton Park) markets within 30min drive to Buckinghamshire. I've always done a huge fruit shop bi-weekly at a fruit market max 30mins drive (and augment with the supermarket and local fruiters) so this is important. I seem to live on pineapples, berries, citrus and when in season watermelons and mangoes.

We need a detached 4 bed house with SW facing garden, dinning room, study, large kitchen breakfast room, lounge, utility room, 1 ensuite master bedroom in a nice area with good grammar schools. Max 30min by train to London and

25min drive to a cheap fruit and veg market. Where in Bucks should we look?

What's your budget?

£1m. We could go higher for the right house but will like to change the kitchen, bathrooms etc.

Milton Keynes is only 30-40 mins by train into Euston. Lots of local kids travel to grammar schools in Bucks by bus from MK, although there aren’t any in the city itself.

MK is made up of lots of small village-like areas and has small towns on the outskirts in Stony Stratford and Newport Pagnell (Stony would be closer for trains but everywhere is only 10-15 apart by car as the roads here are so easy).

Re fruit markets, there are regular markets in the city centre but if you have specific requirements there are lots of ethnic shops around too where you can buy crates of mangoes and watermelons etc.

Does it have to be in Bucks? Slough has a fast connection to London, grammar schools and ethic markets. Not too far from Bucks.

You could buy this for £950k

@TheShoeLady crates of fruit?! Oh word! That's my thing! I currently have two boxes of eight mangoes each, two pineapples and loads of citrus in in two crates. I never thought of MK in that light. When I've driven through I've never seen any market of fruit shops. Thanks for the insight. How would you compare Prestwood to MK? Prestwood is a village so perhaps villages around MK. It seems MK has loads of options to buy my type of fruit and beg and for Prestwood it would likely be somewhere else. Money does go further in MK. We've not looked there cos I feel it's further than I am comfortable with. Thanks again.😊

@SpaghettiArmsMurderer I've driven through Slough a couple of times. People seems to be weary of it and allude to a poem. We considered Burnham on the QE line but after we went to see it it seemed to lost it's shine.😌

I can't see Prestwood or Great Missenden working for you if you want a fast connection to London. There are trains from Great Missenden and the underground from Chesham/Amersham but they stop at every single station en route so you're looking at a good 45 minutes to an hour to get anywhere central. I used to work near Wembley and it was hell on earth driving (think 1+ hour). It's also a semi-rural area so not many options for buying crates of pineapples, mangoes and melons...

I suggest you look closer to the M25 so Stoke Poges, Gerrards Cross, The Chalfonts, Seer Green, Beaconsfield. Property is £££££ so unlikely you will get a four bed detached for £1M unless you lower your expectations in terms of size or area. Houses closer to High Wycombe and Slough will be cheaper and fall into the grammar school areas.

Perhaps also consider Heathrow and Enfield where there are loads of fruit wholesalers.

Beaconsfield or Hazlemere/Penn near High Wycombe is worth a look.

Wycombe High or Beaconsfield High (girls)
John Hampden or Royal Grammar School (boys)

Having said that Beaconsfield is about to get thousands of new homes so might be worth avoiding in favour of Penn/Hazlemere.

Would St Albans not work for you because I've lived there twice- it has a very good market several times a week with masses of fruit and veg - might be a bit tight on the budget but train is very quick and very regular - also Watford- I haven't been for a while but that always had a really good old school indoor market

This is quite nice and on trainline between St Albans and watford

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/85643472#/?channel=RES_BUY

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/122145899#/?channel=RES_BUY

This is pretty nice in Marlow (lovely little town) pretty posh. You do have a load of farm shops in that area - plus I'm sure Wycombe and Maidenhead will have street markets and certainly a quick trip to not very thrilling Slough will have a ton of fruit and veg places ( and cheap)

Can I suggest it might be more logical to drop the focus on cheap fruit, widen your search, and save (say) 50k on your 950k budget. You can buy an awful lot of expensive fruit for 50k. £50 a week for nearly 20 years....

@mast0650 Yep, I agree- the house in Marlow I posted for instance is offers over£825,000 . If you want Whitechapel on your doorstep you simply are unlikely to find it in the Home Counties - but you will find some good farm shops - I would find a good house and a farm shop that delivers (many do) and not all are expensive. I was suprised when I went to one near Windsor a couple of weeks back that some things were actually cheaper than Waitrose or even Sainsburys and that included meat

@TheNoonBell Beaconsfield is about to get a lot of new houses but arguably Hazlemere/Penn is going to be even more badly affected with the Gomm Valley and HW8 developments which will absolutely knacker Hammersley Lane and the A404.

OP, what you want doesn’t exist. The quick Bucks commutes <30 mins are Gerrard’s Cross, Beaconsfield and High Wycombe (the latter on the quick train to Oxford or Birmingham). The first two won’t get you a 4 bed detached under £1m without some significant compromises and definitely not very close to the station. The area just north of High Wycombe station is quite nice & within budget (plus super close to RGS) but not in 25 minutes driving distance of London markets.

Marlow is a pig of a commute - Marlow is a slow spur line & driving to High Wycombe station in peak hour or around school pick up is hit and miss, as Marlow Hill is frequently backed up.

Surely there’s fruit delivery companies that could step into the void if you are really keen on Bucks grammars?

The other option is you could join us here in Windsor and send to Slough Grammar 3 miles away- lots do it and there are buses. Very good school I'm told. Slough is not 'naice' itself but does have the kind of fruit/veggie presence you are on about and again we have some good farm shops close by. It's 22 minutes drive to chiswick (we do it most weeks) train is around 38 minutes if you go to London via Slough from Windsor central (crossrail too)

This is not bad

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/124418225#/?channel=RES_BUY

If I can say as well the secondary state schools here in Windsor really aren't bad at all - good grounds, good facilities-

Completely agree.

Marlow is definitely not a fast connection to London. The Handy Cross roundabout and A404 is the main route through to the M4 for High Wycombe and the villages north of it to get to Reading and Slough. The M4 corridor has lots of big companies and lots of traffic. Slough has one of the largest trading estates in Europe. It tends to go a bit pear shaped if there is a crash on the M40.

I mentioned marlow as to be honest I missed the bit about 30 mins to London as OP hadn't specifically said 'commuting' I just got the impression she wanted that quickness to go to the fruit markets! If commuting daily isn't an issue and having to be somewhere at specific times, then Marlow is a decent bet

Unless I'm mistaken, she's not going to get any ethnic street markets within 30 minutes of Marlow. I'm not sure the greengrocers in Bourne End will cut it somehow.

It's more of a Midsomer Murders vibe around here than multi-cultural melting pot.

@hatinacat absolutely- !!
which is why as per a previous post I suggested OP
Forget the fruit market 'thing' in most of Home Counties if I'm honest- st albans kind of has it 2 days a week and Watford as I suggested had a good indoor one (but haven't been for a few years)

To find ethnic markets, you need to be looking in or around area of ethnic diversity. That wipes out huge chunks of Buckinghamshire.
You also seem fixated on the grammar schools. How old are your DC? Unless they're at least Yr4, how do you even have a good idea if they'll pass or not? Even if you think they will at that stage, they might have a bad day. So focus on all schools not just grammar schools. Also, there aren't that many private schools in Bucks (perhaps due to the 11+) so there aren't as many alternatives.
You might want to look at frequency of trains as well as length of commute time. And also consider things like how much parking there is at the station or ways of getting to the station other than driving. Chiltern Trains seem to have massively reduced their offering since Covid so places which may have reached your criteria a few years ago won't now. It's also worth knowing that the Plan B is if there trains/tube/buss aren't available at any time.

Get Kirsty and Phil on to it - just to see the look on their faces when to give that long list of requirements

Have you considered Essex instead? Super selective grammars, much closer to Dalston and other fruit markets available. On the east London side of Essex you’d stand a far greater chance of being able to purchase a wider range of fruit and veg than Buckingham? Extra fast connections into London to boot.