Market Harborough or Dunchurch / Rugby

[ellecf21]

Hello! Looking for thoughts, advice, experiences. Scenario:

• relocating from south Hertfordshire (Waltham Cross) to be closer to family up North
• need a commute to London 2 days a week (DH) that we have to pay for so moving fully up north isn't an option. I will need to commute to South Leics once a week and occasionally London (few times a year)
• looking for a nice area with good schools that would be a lovely place for our DD and potential future children to grow up in and call home
• we've been to MH a few times and it ticks a lot of our boxes. Also visited Dunchurch in Rugby which we also really liked but feel less familiar with the area. Both take a similar time to get back up north but I also have family in Leicester so it's a bonus to be closer to them (currently live near no one we know, very isolated)

What are your thoughts, advice, experiences in these areas please. Coming to a point where we need to make a decision - will likely rent initially but open to buying if the house is right (not a lot in our bracket at the moment). Also any hidden gems you think we should look at would be great.

I know all three areas so you're in luck!

Dunchurch is a very small and very expensive area to live compared to the main town of Rugby. Phone signal is shit. If you aren't on wifi forget it. It has a small village feel but is quite urban.

Rugby is great for train and motorway links at the north end of the town. The town itself is dead. Charity shops, coffee shops and barbers (basically any town). It is the safest large town in Warwickshire statistically.

Market Harborough is again expensive, you're paying for the location but it is a nice town.

Based on travel to London for DH I would opt for Rugby as the direct train to Euston is under an hour.

Rugby town is changing. Some nice new restaurants have opened and they're knocking down one end of the shopping centre to change it to smaller units with flats over. I like it, it's lovely place to go for food and a few drinks of an evening without being too mad and full of trouble.

Dunchurch has a reputation of being the place to go for primary, but actually all the primary schools are great and you have the grammar system for secondary as an option if you want to go for that. The phone signal is horrendous.

Rugby is well connected - good trains into Euston - but doesn't have a bookshop. Not one.

Used to visit MH regularly and from St Pancras it would take just under an hour. Although often packed trains on the way home on Sunday as they were coming from Leciester. Found MH a lively market town with the some lovely countryside and pretty villages easily accessible. Don’t know about schools unfortunately.

I lived in Harborough for years and now live in one of the villages. I love it. We briefly considered Rugby area originally but one of the deciding factors was having to travel to and from Euston daily. Euston is an absolute, miserable hole. St Pancras is lovely. Although train tickets cheaper from Rugby than Harbs.

What 🤣 the poor bookshop.

There’s a lot of things Rugby doesn’t have. But the bookshop! It’s one of our only good independents left.

Rugby is an interesting place. It could be incredible. But it’s been badly let down successively by the council over and over. There is no vision, no bar for quality. It’s actually a stunning town if you look above ground floor, but a lot of street level frontages have been allowed to be trashed and replaced with shiny plastic barber signs, vape stickers windows and it’s just dead now.

The library is one of the best in the county but it’s stuck opposite a carpark. That could easily be a park with restaurants/ cafes around and it’s could be a lovely town. There is a small green triangle down one of the side roads and that is very popular with independents. So yes it’s entirely solveable, just lack of vision/ aspiration; any decent planning policy.

But we are having a lot of external consultants being paid at the moment to create a new masterplan/ vision / identity etc. So there is hope and if your up for a gamble it’s a great way to get a hell of a lot of sqft for bargain prices, and a faster link to London than the majority of Greater London/ the Home Counties.

Thank you all so much this is all incredibly useful - being from a village in Yorkshire originally, I know how annoying having no phone signal can be. Not a dealbreaker but definitely worth considering.

We just sold our house today and now feel like the pressure is on to make a decision. We've also thrown north Oxfordshire into the question so any experience in that area also helps.

Banbury is c. 50 minutes to London by train. Primary schools good, secondaries mixed. Beautiful countryside and villages around.

@Squirrelsnut we are considering some of the surrounding villages so great to know! On here Banbury seems to get mixed reviews but it could be a great connection for us.

Take a look at southam and surrounding villages, pretty areas offering ideal areas to bring up a family and on main routes to Leamington Coventry Banbury and rugby all about a fifteen to twenty minutes away

huntsbookshop.com/

Bloody marvelous independent. Plus a Christian one and WHSmith.

We've got some viewings in the Southam area planned for the weekend so this is great to hear!

Anyone know much of Medbourne?

Medbourne is a nice little village we used to go to a pub there as kids for food with my dad the Neville arms it was called.

market harborough is one of those places that seems like a nice little market down but scratch the service and there’s quite a rough element to it, not sure I’d want to live there but there are plenty of nice villages nearby

Have a look at the train costs too. Rugby to Euston is ridiculously cheap at times, Leicester to London St Pancras is extortionate. We are far nearer to Leicester but always travel to rugby to get trains, I’m not sure how market harborough fits it price wise

Market harborough trains to St Pancras are far more expensive than Rugby to Euston.
Hunts is a fabulous independent bookshop.

Steer away from Dunchurch , dreadful
Phone signal and Dunchurch Park Hotel is now housing hundreds of migrants /immigrants in pods on the grounds compliments of SERCO.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/150456749

Handy for the station

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/149041880

A few minutes from the station

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/146228270

Walk to the station, prime location.

www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/150263909

A bit footballers wives but good size and handy for the station.

I used to live in Market Harborough.

Lovely town but very expensive. Schools have quite long waiting lists from what some of the local groups say.

Good transportation links... good for jobs with the local hospital too. Drs surgery's are terrible for appointments...

There are various travellers sites located in and just outside of MH however contrary to what the locals say, they really don't cause too much trouble. You hear about them in the local news just as much as anyone else causing problems in the town.

Lovely walks and things to do with the children... Foxton Locks, Rutland Water not too far away, Leicester for shopping.

I moved away for work but will go back at some point to live

Ha! I was told Rugby had not a single bookshop by DS ... now beginning to wonder if he'd rather not get book tokens for birthdays!

It depends what you're looking for really.

I grew up in Market Harborough so it's always a bit weird seeing it crop up in places people are looking to move to (nothing to do with the town itself, more wanting to move away to feel like you've actually moved on in life).

Anyway. MH is decent enough. The station's on the edge of town so if you're looking for somewhere walkable for the commute then that limits your options. It does feel like retiree central, although that could have more to do with the time of day I see the town centre when I'm up there.

We were recently looking with very similar criteria, < 1 hour into London, and ended up settling on Kettering instead. Same rail line so easy for both London and Leicester and the houses are considerably cheaper. But they're cheaper for a reason as Kettering town centre is a bit of a dump. If you're more focussed on getting the most house for your money and commuting convenience, then it's pretty unbeatable. But if you're after a nice location with good shopping and restaurants on your doorstep, then it won't be for you.

You've not mentioned budget but, given some of the options linked above, this bears up well in comparison.
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/143942483#/?channel=RESBUY
We viewed it when looking for ours and the photos don't do it justice - it's beautifully done up inside. The road's super-quiet and a short walk to the station.

lol, maybe!

I'd say Rugby probably has better transport links, both road and rail. The M6 and M1 are both very close by, and the high-speed trains all stop at Rugby.

Rugby has good schools as well. There's a girls grammar (and a boys), and some other decent schools. Of course, there is also the famous "Rugby School", which brings some kudos and some money to the town.

That being said, I'd say Market Harborough is the "nicer" in terms of the town centre. But then how often are you planning on shopping in the town centre?

If I were choosing, I'd chose Rugby. And it's worth pointing out that Dunchurch and Rugby are basically the same place nowadays, and have been for years. There's no separation really.