Your thoughts on Amersham vs St Albans and Twickenham

[Noelia1]

Hello,
We are currently living in London and looking for a lovely new home. As the family is in the midlands, friends are in SW, and our work is in central London, we need something in the North/West on the commuter belt with good transport links to London. We hope to find a 3-bed house in a nice place with a good community feel, good schools and a nice high street with pubs, restaurants, etc. We are also expecting our first, so schools are essential.
We narrowed our options to Amersham, St Albans/Harpenden or Twickenham/Whitton (in SW London).
Budget around £800k
Any thoughts would be hugely appreciated!

Try Teddington, lovely spot x

I live in St Albans and love it. Lots of independent shops and the chains you rely on, great pubs and restaurants and from what I hear, great schools. Wonderful green spaces around the city too. Downsides are it costs close to £30 to do the commute to London (train plus tube) but in saying that, it takes 20 mins on a fast train to get to London. Lovely sense of community here. It’s the kind of place where people will chat to strangers in the pub or the park. Lots of events always happening too.

It’s very expensive here though. 800k will get you a nice house but you’ll likely have to compromise on something e.g space, type of school, ex-council house vs period property, box room etc.

Amersham and Twickenham are better value.

Another vote for St Albans from a former Londoner. The commute into London is great but expensive. Gorgeous place to live, lots to do, minimal anti social behaviour and easy access to the countryside.

As mentioned by a PP, it all comes at a cost though and St Albans is similar to Wimbledon prices. £800k for a good sized 3 bed and garden will mean you have to live further out from the city centre and will need to drive to the station. It’s about £7 a day to park at the station on top of the circa £30 travel to London. You can get a small 3 bed terraced Victorian cottage (the type with a front door that opens straight into the living room) with no off street parking in a good area for about £750k.

St Alban's and Amersham are both lovely, but think the Thameslink is better for commuting into London than the Metropolitan line.

Amersham is a nice town, Old Amersham is v pretty with 'naice' shops, your budget won't get you anything much there. New Amersham (or Amersham on the Hill) is more practical (tube/train station, more 'everyday' shops with some nice bars/restaurants). The bit around the station is v busy, the area over towards Chesham Bois is nicer.

You should be able to get a reasonable 3 bed for £800k but may be ex council etc. There are good schools (state & private) but one major factor to consider if you're looking long term and at state is that Bucks is an 11+ area and therefore if your DC don't pass to go to the excellent grammar schools then you have only 'upper schools' not comprehensive (although the Amersham one has a good reputation) and it's v competitive for the 11+, many people tutor. People buy in Amersham for the grammar schools (the Dr Challoners schools are v sought after and have small catchment), so house prices are correspondingly high.

Transport links from Amersham are pretty good - the Chiltern line is usually (train strikes aside) reliable into Marylebone and c35mins. The metropolitan line is slow (c50mins to Baker st).

I'm most familiar with Amersham. It's a nice town. Has a tube station and is in the Bucks grammar school system. You have the Challoners schools and other options quite close by if Secondary education is important to you. Between Old Amersham and New Amersham you have most popular facilities covered. It will give you a good balance of access to the countryside combined with an OK commute into London.

Having lived in Twickenham, check out the flight path (I'd never live near one again). Also metres above sea level and projected future flood areas.

I'm not too familiar with the other areas but I live in twickenham/whitton and love it.

Whitton and twickenham have plenty of food chains, supermarkets, boots, Superdrug, bakeries. Twickenham had more restaurants and pubs.

Crane park is really nice, lovely river walks, connections in to London and surrounds really good.

Teddington is near by which is really nice and would be my preference to live in but it's pricier and think you'd struggle to get what you want within your budget.

Whitton can be a pain on rugby days depending on where you live and whether you want to use the car/train/buses on that day.
Stay well away from the sewage works at Isleworth end they used to smell in the summer although maybe it's better now. The plane noise is pretty bad in the garden.
On the plus side you'd be near the river, nice cafes and restaurants and parks.
The A316 can get v congested.

Personally I prefer Kingston/Surbiton but not sure what prices are like at moment compared to Twick.

Whitton can be a pain on rugby days depending on where you live and whether you want to use the car/train/buses on that day

Rugby days are more of a pain than flight noise (I live in central Twickenham).

Twickenham had more restaurants and pubs

Twickenham is absolute shit for shopping - always has been. It concentrates more on the rugby business which skews it to pubs and restaurants. Teddington is much better.

Maybe it's because I now live somewhere less under flight path so I'm not used to it anymore but find it plane noise awful in the summer visiting friends in Whitton.

I hardly notice it. The landing path branches off at St Margaret's and goes away from my bit so I don't hear that, and despite being under a takeoff path for longhaul I hardly hear those either. Maybe I'm just habituated though 😉Whitton I don't know about as I hardly go there but isn't most of it under the landing route?(ditto Richmond)

I'm whitton and the flight noise is horrendous sometimes. Summer was absolutely awful and really disturbed our sleep last year. Maybe we had got used to the no/reduced flights over covid.

I don't find rugby days too bad, we just make sure we don't drive anywhere and lose our parking place as we are quite near the stadium and also harlequins.

Kingston for actual clothes shopping, whitton you can get all you need and there's some really nice pubs on the river in twickenham and on the green.

If money was no problem then Harpenden is a good one too and my favourite.

@Noelia1
You could consider Berkhamsted. Quicker trains into Euston.Good High street and Waitrose. Tring is also pleasant but smaller. They are in Herts so not grammar area. Amersham and Old Amersham are pretty good places to live. Or Chesham Bois which joins Amersham on the Hill. The Chiltern Line is very reliable. I like St Albans and Harpenden. Most people would enjoy living there.

Lived in Twickenham for years in various places. The flight noise was very location dependant - over by the rugby stadium / whitton / isleworth area I found it very loud and annoying. Down in the main twickenham town on the high street area I found it negligible.
Definitely wouldn’t live too close to mogden near the rugby stadium cos it smells too often for my liking. I liked the rugby crowds - a bit inconvenient but mostly low trouble and quite fun.

Loved twickenham as a town - yes absolutely it is geared towards lots of pubs and places to eat for the rugby, but they were nearly all v good pubs and v good places to eat so it was a win. I also found it a little more down to earth than teddington or Richmond - more actually local friendly feeling places rather than artisan super-fancy-pants cafes. Thought that was 10 years ago. And it’s v v easy to get into Richmond or teddington or anywhere like that if you want that vibe - just a few mins on the bus or a short walk along the river.

we moved for schools though so be careful where you look - more affordable is generally because it’s in a school dead zone. But I’m v out of date on that.