House search in Surrey - suggestions please

[ThePoliteBunny]

We are moving towards Surrey for family relocation. We currently have 2 children, with the older one due to start reception in 2026.

What we are looking at:

• 850k semi- or detached house (room for expansion)
• school, in good state primary school catchment area
• activities, parks or rivers for children to walk and play
• commuting, not necessary but not too bad to go into London once a while
• low crime rate

Places we are researching includes Weybridge, Walton, Chertsey, Esher and Cobham. I don’t know much about those areas apart from heard some of the “attractions” in each; hence, a suggestion on which area is better for family is needed.

Also, any streets/roads in these areas that are nice to look at or to avoid would be appreciated as I am aware that there are nice and bad streets in any places.

I’d suggest you try looking at Reigate or Dorking- lovely and generally safe areas with great schools and v family friendly.

Thanks @southchinasea @user764329056 I do like Horsell and it is expensive. What’s the schools like in Horsell? Do they have good pastoral care? What about academic results?

Isn’t Woking’s council is very bad debt? Apologies if I have this wrong

I’d recommend looking into Send. It’s a village tucked back from the A3, with good road links into london. Access to lots of countryside around the canal, good pubs, great playground, guide / scout group, doctors surgery, popular with families due to the village primary. Also easy to get to Woking (leisure centre with big swimming pools, lots of sports clubs, fast train to london, great theatre and cinema, lots of shops) without actually being in Woking.

if you want something more rural but with ok links to london then the villages inbetween Guildford and dorking are beautiful. Shalford, shere, Peaslake, wonersh, shamley green, etc. There are train stations at Gomshall, Chilworth and Shamley green.

If you are Catholic I would look at Rydes Hill and maybe Wood Street. Otherwise those areas are nice but a problem for secondaries.

Try Whyteleafe / Riddlesdown / Warlingham / Sanderstead. Lots of outstanding primary schools and an outstanding secondary. 30 mins into Victoria from Upper Warlingham station.

I live in Woking and moved from Richmond.
We like it here. Town but lots of green and countryside on doorstep.
Lots of community stuff, fast trains to London. Good schools and very safe.
The nice bit is Horsell. It has butcher, veg shop, baker, Coop. All through schooling plus private.
Close to Waitrose.
Lots of former Londoners so prices have gone up quite a bit.
This might suit, right in the middle
www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/162184790

Infant and Woking High are great. Junior school is ok. They are CofE but seems heavily religious when I looked. They had a Bible and a cross on display and the website blurb confirms it. We are non religious though.
They still get good results though, but some people opt for private for that part of education.

Woking High is certainly well thought of. If Horsell is a bit pricy, is further out any good? Pirbright has some nice properties and isn’t far from Brookwood, which has a good train service to London. Bisley, West End, Lightwater, Bagshot and Windlesham are on the A322 and not far from the M3, although about five miles from Woking. Windlesham is lovely and probably more expensive.

Winston Churchill School is in Woking
Bisley Cof E primary
Holy Trinity, West End
Several primaries in Bagshot, Brookwood, Pirbright, Knaphill, Windlesham, Camberley, Frimley

Collingwood College in Camberley is a large secondary.
Tomlinscote is in Frimley

I'd seriously Google news outlets for some of these areas. Egham is not the place it once was. Also news for Walton.

Further down south there's Haslemere and Godalming. Close enough to Guildford

I don’t know about house prices but Englefield Green is lovely and very much a village feel.

I grew up in Guildford, and enjoyed it hugely.
My family lived in the 'cheap seats' in Bellfields estate, on the edge of the common. The town itself is nice, cobbled street, reasonable collection of shops, the theatre is just about hanging on etc. (The christmas panto with Peter Gordon is always particularly good).

If i had your budget, i'd probably avoid buying in Bellfields, and would certainly avoid buying the Park Barn estate.

The Onslow Village was always perfectly nice, so long as you were far enough away from the hogs back. Elsewise toward pewley hill was very posh, and i think a previous poster quite rightly recomended some of the surrounding villages (Shamley Green, Shere is beautiful) etc.

Secondary Schools wise, (and remember i am easily 15 years out of date) my impressions were roughly thus:

Christ College, on it's way up, but a way to go. (Rebuilt after being burnt down, new facilities etc).
County School, on it's way down, but not too bad. (Specialist music college, back in the day).
George Abbot, a good school but massive.
Royal Gramma/Guildford High, incredible academically, but violently expensive and impossible to get into.

Good luck with the search!

Thanks everyone! I see lots of people suggested nearby villages. Honestly we did not consider villages mainly thinking about kids. As they grow up into teenagers, we think they might want to be able to go out about with their friends without us dropping them everywhere. Hence we only looked at onslow village in guildford and Horsell in Woking. Both were more of a residential area rather than village and right next to town centre.

@Scrabblerabble89 its a shame county school is on the way down, otherwise onslow village could be perfect that has primary schools, secondary and with easy reach to university.

Agree re villages.
Shere, Windlesham etc are nice but you have to drive everywhere.
Even Chobham - nice but trafic is bad and still have to drive them to secondary, pool etc

In that case I would highly recommend Guildford. As teens we all headed there for meet ups / shopping during that day and to the bars /pubs / nightclubs at night. It’s a nice mix of market town with good shops during the day, and quite buzzy at night. Also tonnes of after school clubs in and around the town centre for pre-teens. The residential area around / behind the castle has some beautiful properties and good access out to the villages in the Surrey hills. Onslow village also a nice family area. Holy Trinity primary school has a fab reputation, and County school I think still does (have not heard it’s going downhill, but maybe it is?). Lots of well regarded private options too although GHS is a bit like marmite, and I knew a lot of girls who suffered bullying, anxiety and eating disorders there.

merrow also a safe bet if you want something quieter with really easy access into Guildford (5 min bus ride) for teens. St Peter’s (secondary) is as close to a private school as a state school can get

Ya know, looking at their most recent ofsted (2023) County seem to be back to outstanding (as of 2017, in fact)! So i take it all back, and apologise profusely to the school, teachers and alumni for my damaging out of date info!

Maybe it was just me dragging it down in the old days? Certainly, if my maths and physics was anything to go by, i could believe it.