Horsham

[Lilly2014]

Hi! My husband and I are planning a move out of London and have been looking at new builds for a while. We'd originally been considering Crowborough or Kings Hill but have recently come across Horsham. Our ideal location would be Tunbridge Wells but a detached house there is a bit out of our budget - so Horsham seems like the next best option. It seems to have a similar feel and some of the same amenities. Would you recommend living in Horsham? What are the surrounding areas like for day trips or just exploring nearby? We're in our late 30s and my husband commutes to London Bridge three times a week. Thanks so much for your help!

I grew up in Horsham. It’s nice and exactly what you’d expect from a nice middle class market town. Houses are well kept. Schools are good. Town centre is lovely. It’s quite white if that is a factor for you.

Horsham is effectively surrounded by the a264 which is a sort of ring road. Most of the new builds going up now are on the outside of the ring road so potentially something to consider.

I moved to London as I’m a city girl so I don’t want to write too much as a market town just isn’t for me so I’ll possibly sound negative (id sound the same re any market town).

I used to commute from littlehaven it was fine if you knew the train times. You’d sometimes get stuck at three bridges.

surrounding areas lots of walks, Brighton isn’t too far. Crawley isn’t that nice. London isn’t that far on the weekend.

any specific Qs feel free to ask :)

Another with experience here (DP is from there, so we.koved when we had kids). It's a great place to live with kids, lots to do, great schools etc. It's easy to access the countryside and sea, and not far from Brighton or London.

However, unless you want a painful commute, I wouldn't go for one of the new builds on the edge of town (we have 2 stations- Littlehaven and Horsham. Of these, Horsham has way more trains and faster trains (not sure the LB trains stop at Littlehaven? I know a proportion of the Victoria ones do). You also don't risk getting caught at a level crossing if you are late).

I would spend some time familiarising yourself with the various areas and the housing stock available against what you need, as what is classed as Horsham is spread out (same as TW and other market towns, TBH). We also like to say that a few areas are 'rough for Horsham' - places that locals think are rough, but elsewhere you wouldn't blink an eyelid at them.

It can be a change of pace for Londoners (most market towns are...I am a born and bred Londoner) but, for a market town, it has a lot happening- lots of restairants, bars, an everyman cinema, theatre, regular markets with local produce and so on.

Depends what you are looking for! We have friends in TW, and prefer Horsham... but that is because we were able to afford what we wanted, and managed to find it where we wanted it. Friends currently looking to move to a new property are struggling to find what they need in their price range.

Horsham is nice, I also like Haywards Heath.

We live in Sussex and spend a lot of time in Horsham and Haywards Heath looking after grandchildren. There's no comparison Horsham is lovely Haywards Heath somewhat soulless. Horsham is very middle-class as a previous poster said. Fantastic parks, varied housing stock, great schools, good shopping.

Horsham is nice

Very much agree on HH- a town built around a train station, and a bit bland. It has great transport connections, though.

Horsham housing is varied (but expensive). Period houses are harder to find and larger ones get snapped up.

Horsham is much more middle class BUT it is also much more diverse than it used to be. I was pleasantly surprised that there was more diversity in DC's class when she started school than I expected. We also now have a Lib Dem MP for the first time (it was solidly tory previously- eurgh) and a lib dem council.

The high street is thriving too, which is unusual, though you have to be prepared to bump into people you know constantly (that started less than a year in for us, but could be to do with having a nursery school age kid). (You don't mention anything about kids, but the state schools are generally very good with very few exceptions (even those are just personal preferences) Nursery schools and private schools, similarly. If you are looking for a grammar area, though, this isn't it.)

Some of the older population can still be a bit suspicious of people coming from London and not contributing towards the community (we managed to swerve that as we pointed to our local connections) but you get that in a lot of places. Our neighbours are adorable- they have lived there for 40+ years on each side.

Oh, and unless you live near the town centre, driving is a must. Don't ask how I know... or how many parties out of town DP has had to take DC to (though I live near the centre)

We lived in Horsham for the best part of 20 years. It was great when we had a young family. We left about 10 years ago. Only criticism I would have is it’s mostly populated by either younger families or older retired folk, so if you’re outside those demographics as we later were, we found it a little bit limited, hence the fact we moved away to somewhere a bit more vibrant with quicker train links into town etc. However there’s some beautiful countryside around there, we spent a lot of time out on the South Downs and Brighton & Chichester are nearby. It’s a very easy place to live.