one hour away from oxford

[Mousie]

thinking of moving from london. want to downsize - more space for less money. want good state schools and a proper life - not just a pretty village. my husband adores idea of cotswolds - but worried just full of second homers... any ideas - parents in Oxford so one hour from there in any direction would be my ideal choice (we will change jobs so could in theory start again from anywhere...)

all thoughts appreciated

We live near Worcester - takes me an hour to drive to Oxford, or about the same on the train, and can be in Birmingham centre in 35 minutes.

Cheltenham, as long as you live in the right part (eg where the good schools are) - you'd get something nice for £600k, it's approx one hour to Oxford straight down the A40, a lovely town with fantastic shopping and other facilities. You can commute to Birmingham, Bristol or Worcester for work.

thank you - love the idea of that rural secondary school. will do my findaproperty searches today.

Just a thought: do you really want to move from London to the sticks? We did this and hated it, now we live in Oxford and it's fab - best of both worlds. £600k would get you a smallish 4 bed modern house in North Oxford (best schools).

The western part of Hertfordshire is only an hour from Oxford - lots of good state schools if you pick the right town. Not too much "in the sticks" (unless that's what you want). You could even keep your London jobs if you wanted to - very fast train service on some lines - eg 25 minutes to Farringdon

Chipping Campden, Burford, Moreton in Marsh. All lovely & good places to live. Second the stratford idea - great schools there. Then Wiltshire way you could do somewhere like Shrivenham, which is only really a large village, but great sense of community.

Caversham, Sonning Common and other "nicer" parts of Reading??

vanloadtovenice - what did you hate about the sticks? this could be useful...!