Living in Teddington/ Twickenham

[LongbourneCat]

Hello!

another post asking about riverside towns - sorry for anyone finding this very repetitive!

I was hoping someone out there might live in Teddington or one of the neighbouring places and be able to tell me a bit about what it’s like to live there.

DP, two under 5s and I have to move as we are bursting at the seams of our north London flat and would quite like a house with enough bedrooms, a proper (ie not converted cupboard) kitchen and a garden. It doesn’t have to be huge (our budget is on the lower side for London) and a nice area is what matters most to us.

Is Teddington as nice as it looks? We love thae on paper it sees close to parks, the river, drivable to the countryside, bookshop on the high street, cinemas in Kingston, Richmond and Esher, but you could still do a day or an evening in central London…

Are there parent and toddler groups? What are the state schools like? As a teacher & writer would we be - not sure how to put this, but we looked round Barnes & realised we might not fit in…

Is the access to nature as brilliant as it looks? And the high street as lovely?

what is it like for noise, traffic & crime?

does anyone know about the area spanning Collis School to Hampton Wick? Properties seem more affordable, but I wondered if there were any downsides?

literally any Stories or experiences of this area including surrounding options would be hugely appreciated. We’ve lived in the same place for over a decade and moving with children feels very scary!

Oh, waving to @Yogagal and @nc14 !

Can I ask whereabouts? Isleworth, like Brentford, seems really mixed.

Sorry just seen very fulsome answers!

I grew up near Teddington. Very easy to get around on buses and easy to get into London. Fulwell train station has trains straight into Waterloo (which is the station I was closest too). Teddington has a train station too. Bushy Park was one of my childhood outdoor spaces and you could roam there all day. Richmond Park is only a bus ride away too. Lots of nice river walks too. The High St has changed since I lived in the area so can't comment. I visit a couple times a year as my dad still lives in the area. Growing up Kingston was where we went for shopping trips.

North Kingston is nice as well, just the other side of the river connected by a bridge. It’s a bit cheaper, lots of family houses and good schools.

We’ve lived in Teddington since 2012, we moved here from north London. As you can see from my user name we were once thinking of leaving but so glad we didn’t. We did end up moving to the ‘cheaper’ end of Teddington, near Fulwell (we had originally lived in a much smaller place in the Wick Road conservation area). We actually prefer it at this end as we are still within walking distance to the high street, the pool, bushy park and the kids’ school (Collis), but also close to Hampton Hill high street, the outdoor pool in Hampton and the also transport links are better this end. We have really friendly neighbours and a great community around us. If you have any questions I’d be happy to help :)

Another recommendation for Isleworth. You will have Hounslow council tax, which is a few hundred pounds cheaper pcm than the Richmond council tax! You will also get a lot more house for your money - look at 3 bed Victorian terraces in Isleworth and Teddington - there will be about £300k price difference between the two. Getting to Richmond was very quick and easy, 30mins walking down by the river, or a few stops on the bus.

Primary schools (ok this was 10 years ago, things may have changed since) could be tricky; there was the Catholic school with excellent results, the C of E school with excellent results, and.... the other school. A lot of people discovered religion when they started to think about primary schools.

We lived in the 'old roads' bit - the bit between Linkfield Road and St Johns Road. Easy to get to the train station and corner shops.

Heathrow flight path and Mogden are the only downsides to my mind. We never really noticed Mogden, and the whole of SW London suffers with the planes.

Teddington and Twickenham are both lovely. I prefer Twickenham because transport is so much better (regular, very fast trains into Waterloo).

Key question to answer is your budget. If you've got any less than £1m to spend on 3 bedrooms, forget it.

Anything on for less for a 3 bed which claims to be in either of the two will actually be in Whitton or Hanworth (not to be confused with Hampton).

That’s not quite true though, plenty of decent houses in Teddington sub £1m, you just wouldn’t be in the fanciest roads, but those are out of most people’s budgets! Something like this for example:
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/140160299

There definitely are some 3 beds for under a mill (I sold a five bed in Central Teddington for less than that 3 years ago) but not loads, so flexibility and vision is often needed!

Agreed, same in Twickenham plenty of 3 beds well under £1M, just not on the most prestigious roads

Really?!?

None of the nice houses I've seen in Twickenham or Teddington (which aren't actually in Hampton Wick) are much under £1m.

This is typical of the type of Teddington house I'd expect to see, and even this isn't huge:

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/136326230#/?channel=RES_BUY

There are some ridiculously priced roads in Teddington - but plenty that aren’t. I just did a search in Rightmove for houses in teddington under £900k and there were 60. I’m not sure what you mean when you say you are expecting to see a typical type of house in Teddington. The pretty Victorian terraces always are eye-wateringly expensive per square foot. But other styles of houses like the one I posted and ones in the estate the OP mentioned are much better value. Not everyone that lives in Teddington is a property millionaire - I wish that was the case!! :)

I probably should have said the kind of house I'd like to live in lol @BeyondTeddington

Yes, I didn't say anything about nice houses! Think I was clear that you have to make compromises for that. My two bed house was 480k three years ago. It is an old shop: big (big enough to create a third bedroom) and centrally situated, but has no proper garden, no damp proofing, steep stairs and almost no right angles. So can't compete with the lovely conventional family homes, but was a compromise I was happy to make.

If you want a lovely home AND a lovely location, Teddington is indeed expensive. But as I said upthread, there are some great flats and also quirky homes that need some love and vision.

We use to live on Broom road in teddington which is lovely.
We looked at a house on Down road, which I think is near where you are looking?? We didn't buy it as we were told it was a bit of a rough road. Unfortunately the price probably tells you all you need to know. Anything under £800k for 3 beds in teddington won't be on a nice road or will have big compromises.

We moved to twickenham green in the end because we got loads more for our money. It's a really nice area, but I'd move back to teddington in a heartbeat if we could afford anything half decent

Thank you so much everyone for all your help. This has been really useful and given us a lot of food for thought!

Really good to know about Isleworth and Fullwell too, definitely areas we’re going to explore!

As for property prices, we live in a very quirky place at the moment and we have no illusions re our ability to afford a lovely, done up, smart terrace really anywhere in London that’s quiet, leafy, good schools, low crime etc, but our current priorities are definitely nice area and commutable to central London so we’re not too bothered about a house that’s not a £££ terrace (although I googled some Yorkshire rural properties in our budget the other day just to see, and my word London is terrible value for beautiful housing - these were absolutely stunning!)

It’s been great to hear from people with experience living along the river. It’s so hard to get that from day trips and walking around!

Are there ‘bad’ roads and areas in Teddington? It all seems lovely walking around… but very aware I might be missing something (this happened in Roehampton where I understand the vibe does change quite quickly)

Thank you! I can’t get down for a couple of weeks, but if it’s still on the market we’re hoping to take a look. I’ll PM you if we’re in the area 😊

If there are ‘good’ roads and ‘bad’ roads in Teddington, just wondering does this create a social divide? Would my daughter stand out at school if we were in one of the more modern estates and others were in the older terraces? At the moment we are in an area where we are very middle earners (teacher & writer) but the majority are mind blowing high earners (or people in their 80s who bought 50 years ago!) However, at least in toddler group and nursery settings, this gap hasn’t been a problem so far. When we visited Barnes, we didn’t feel quite as smart/ Chelsea chic as the other families we saw so wondered if there was more of a gap… curious how this is in Teddington?

just to be clear I’m not in anyway trying to judge anyone! I know tone doesn’t always translate on Mumsnet. I’m genuinely trying to get a feel for the area and if my children would be happy there 🙂

Not at all! We’ve lived in a ex-council block, a small cottage, and now a detached and we have had the same local friends throughout - it’s a very friendly place. At Collis (and I’m sure it’s the same in the other schools in the area) no one I’ve met care who lives where :)

I also lived in Twickenham 25 years ago, and it was lovely. I miss it every day.

The 'bad' roads in London are far less bad than in most parts of London. There is nowhere I wouldn't walk at night. The estate we are talking about is of course less posh than most of the area, with a mix of social housing and owner occupiers, but it isn't dodgy. It's small and clean and the central playground is often occupied by groups of mums from Collis school. Many of those mums have windows that overlook the playground, and are not slow to intervene if kids are getting unruly.

I have lived in Teddington for 15 years, with a couple years in Twickenham in between. It’s a lovely area, amazing countryside, nice high street, trains can be flaky at times though but once you are not on a tube line most train services are to a degree. Twickenham has a much better train service but didn’t like the area as much. Lots of great primary schools. I used to live in north London before here, it’s very different, but in a good way.

@AnnieHack how diverse is it on a scale of 1 to 10?