Thoughts on Wilmslow / Cheadle Hulme / Bramhall / Heaton Moor & Mersey

[LateAsAlways]

Hi, we've just accepted an offer on our house in London and planning a move to Stockport or East Cheshire.

We need easy access (by public transport) to both Manchester and London for work (although trips to London will probably only be 2-3 times a month maximum) and have two little ones who are nearly 4 and 2. Oldest starts reception in September and littlest will need a nursery place.

We've narrowed it down to the areas I've listed above, but would LOVE any thoughts from people that live in or know well these areas, in terms of pros and cons?? Our budget for buying a house will probably be in the region of £800k and would be looking for a 4 bed house.

Thanks in advance! I'm from North Manchester originally and don't know this area well at all. We really like green space - parks etc - but don't want to be too far from good transport links, so haven't included places like Marple on the list.

Those are all nice areas and you have a good budget.
you could also consider Didsbury and Chorlton which have access to nice green spaces and good transport links.
can you come up for a weekend and spend some time in those areas?

Wilmslow has direct avant trains yo Manchester and London.
Other areas would be local connections

Thank you @HouseofDreams! We have already done a bit of house hunting in Wilmslow and Cheadle Hulme, and driven through Bramhall. I liked Wilmslow and loved a primary school that I saw there, but slightly concerned about the lack of secondary school options and trains are less frequent to London than from Stockport. Also house prices seem £££.

I didn't love the centre of Cheadle Hulme, it felt a bit desolate for a Saturday, but transport links from there seem great and school options seem good.

We probably do need to spend more time exploring, but with two little ones that are currently aged 1 and 3, whenever we visit anywhere we seem to spend most of our time in playgrounds or managing toddler meltdowns, rather than doing constructive research :-)

What about Poynton?

I live in Bramhall. Love it here. The village is great for shops, library, posh lunch and evening meals out. I also really enjoy the local theatre for Am Dram productions plus Bramhall Park is perfect for a 2 and 4 year old (i have a 3 year old and I'm there most weeks) The train from either Bramhall or Davenport is 20 mins to Manchester Centre or if going to London there is a direct train 2 hours from Stockport station a short taxi ride away.

I work in Wilmslow. Also a direct train to Manchester but takes longer as further south. You often see famous footballers etc hanging around in Wilmslow (and nearby Alderly Edge). I think the closer to the centre you get the more eye wateringly expensive it becomes but has a lovely park (The Carrs) and you can walk to the local National Trust from there.

Heaton Moor is also nice but it is a tiny area as there are the 4 Heatons all next to each other so it's important to pick the correct one.

Cheadle Hulme if the property is on the Bramhall border is also nice. Again with a train station direct to Manchester.

Thanks for the intel everyone, that's super helpful and I will add the extra places to the list to check out. Someone else mentioned Poynton to me @strawberry12345, it hadn't really been on my radar so I need to look at transport links etc.

Bramhall sounds lovely, @NatMoz. Is it easy enough to meet other mums? I will have two days off in the week with my littlest one, so hoping to find somewhere with plenty of toddler classes / activities and opportunities to meet people, as we won't know a soul!

I live south Manchester and would consider moving to poynton as loads of our horsey pals live there or nearby. The centre is lovely and it has a Waitrose, loads of independent shops

There are things going on every day of the week.

I also have 2 days a week off and spend Mondays with 2 other mums and same age children i met from baby groups when they were tiny. We tend to visit every playground in the area and for coffee after each Monday.

One of them is a full time mum so she packs her little ones days full of activities. I know she does Ballet on a Thursday (pretty sure it's the ballet school in central Bramhall) tiny talk which is a sign language class, tumble tots and swimming and then we both do gymnastics on a Friday. I can't recommend that gymnastics group enough.

I won't bore you but there are also local church toddler groups every day of the week. I can recommend local ones for a Tues, Weds and Friday that I've personally attended and highly recommend.

My husband goes to 'who let the dad's out' church play groups on a Saturday morning sometimes too!

For us we love the area as you're so close to the peak district where we go on short (2 mile walks) with beautiful views and points of interest. Take a packed lunch and just head out early on a sunny day. Have visited Baslow Edge and Lud's Church recently and have many more in the pipeline!

Ultimately it depends what you like but for us it has the perfect mix of culture, activities, clubs and countryside as well as being close to Manchester.

Oh yeah i forgot to mention. My husband is part of the local photography club and i attend a pottery night class at the local college. You won't be bored!
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What a great selection of areas- I’m going to be no help as I can see real positives for all of them!

How often will you be going into Manchester?

What sort of feel do you want? Cheadle Hulme and the Heatons are less of a rural mix in feel. But that might appeal. Personally I've never really got the Cheadle appeal but most people love it so that's just me.

Bramhall is lovely. Good mix of everything. Poynton is also nice.

Wilmslow feels bit more rural but on direct line to London and very nice.

I'd vote Bramhall but really they are all pretty decent.

I would say the best primary school option out of those areas would be Laurus Cheadle Hulme so I would vote for the surrounding area for that reason

My husband will be going into Manchester 3 days a week for work, I will be working at home mostly with occasional trips to London where my office is.

It's a good question as to "feel". We've lived in London for a while and pre-kids we loved going out to see live music and theatre and eating out. Now we barely go out as our kids are so little. But I'm hoping we will get back to some sort of social life at some point when the kids are a bit older (please someone tell me this will happen!!). So we don't want somewhere that is far away from the action. But we do like green space and easy access to countryside.

Amazing thanks so much for the info. This sounds great. A lot of my social life in the last few years has been based around baby / toddler groups, so it's good to know there is plenty around. And I love the name of the Saturday Dad's group 😂

Have you considered Prestbury? Gorgeous village and more of a rural feel than the others you’ve mentioned but has several restaurants, cafes and pubs, playground, village hall with children’s activities etc. We find plenty to do with our similar aged children here and also go to either Wilmslow (15 min drive) or nearby Macclesfield (10 mins). It doesn’t have direct trains to London but Macclesfield does. We were surprised to find the housing is slightly cheaper here than in Wilmslow as it’s really very pretty and well to do.

I haven't looked at Prestbury, thank you, it sounds lovely and I will add it to the list to check out.

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