Suggestions - nice market town north or west of London, maybe 1.5 hours drive away for my parents to consider moving to

[MNersanonymous]

My parents and granny are considering moving closer to London as all of their kids are down here.

We all live either north or westish of London.
I don't think given where they live now or their stage in life they'd like a city but then again they love eating out so a village wouldn't work. So I was thinking market towns (maybe Bury St Edmunds type size)

Considerations are:

• it would need to be safe i.e. not a hotbed of crime
• not absolutely extortionately priced given they are moving from the northwest, although this is not a huge issue as they could do with a bedroom or two less if they don't have us all coming to stay.
• no need to be commutable to London
• needs to have enough restaurants to keep their going out to dinner habit going
• the kind of place where there'd be a bridge club for grandma as she is addicted and it would be a great way for her to meet people!

Can't think of anything else really.

Any suggestions!?? it's a bit pie in the sky at the moment but it seems a wise idea as they don't have much binding them to where they live now.

They'd need to get two properties very close to each other e.g. two on the same development or a house that is already split into two as grandma would want a separate space for her.

Amersham? St Albans? Harpenden? Berkhamsted? The Chalfonts? All very nice, but probably fairly expensive....

Olney, just north of Milton Keynes, is nice. Lots of restuarants, close to MK, bedford, Northampton. Prices are high-ish, but not compared with Amersham etc. here is some information about the place. I lived there for 4 years.

Olney sounds interesting. St Albans, Berko probably too commutable - they don't need to pay a premium for the ability to commute into London iyswim so might as well be slightly further out.

Maybe an hour further out from St Albans/ Reading even.

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odiham, hants

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Buckingham or Winslow - both lovely IMO

Cambridge

cambridge is a city, and it is dire.

Saffron Walden

Woodbridge, Suffolk

Gosh this is going to be a bit overwhelming. I think I need Kirstie and Phil to do a Relocation etc on them!

Stamford?

There are loads of good places:

For NW London: Berkhamsted, Amersham, Wendover, Harpenden, Marlow / Henley, Buckingham,

It's a buyers market out there, so they need to get some good estate agents on the case!!!

Stamford
Woodbridge
Huntingdon

Chesham. right on the end of the Metropolitan line and i live there so i can show them a good time.

(would they be up for some babysitting do you think?? )

Ha ha nice try if they are babysitting anyone it's going to be ds - they owe me three years' worth!

But it really makes sense for them to avoid commuter towns like Berhamsted, Amersham etc as they don't need to be paying the premium for access to London.

It really should be more than 1.5 hours from London but less than 2.5 I'd say.

1.5 hours by car or train?

Stamford is lovely - i used to live near there.

How about Stratford-upon-Avon? Lovely (but of course tourist trap in summer), and lots of decent restaurants.

Wokingham is nice, though houses are fairly expensive.
It's just over an hour from Waterloo, or you can change at Reading for Paddington.

Reigate? S of London but easy for M25

I second Saffron Walden, it's lovely.

Cambridge dire ChasingSquirrels?! Don't think I've ever heard those two words in the same sentence before

well maybe having to struggle in through the traffic every morning just spoils it for me, I don't like it at all though and never go in apart from for work. Going to get worse with the congestion charge aswell.

Dorking is lovely - v v v v easy to get on train but right in gorgeous countryside. (IL's live there and going to visit them reminds me why I love England!)