Woking - local info please!

[timesarechanging]

Hi. I am thinking about relocating to the Woking area and wonder if anyone can help me get a feel for where is nice to live, and where to avoid etc. Happy to look at villages around Woking too, like Ripley, Send etc.

I'd ideally like to be walking distance to a local shop to buy milk, nappies etc!

Thanks.

I live to the West of Woking. There are many villages, house prices vary quite a bit. I'm in Lightwater, which has a variety of shops - today I walked to the Post Office, to Budgens supermarket and also got my hair cut.
We have a two schools in the village, a private nursery, plus I think there are two playgroups.
Scroll around this map for an idea of house prices.

What other criteria do you have? For example, do you need to be within walking distance of a train station? Do you need easy car access to motorway network? Near good schools? Etc.

thanks nannynick!

getting to the station is necessary for DH. do you know if it's feasible to drive to the station and park, then get the train? perhaps the traffic is really bad and parking hard to find and expensive etc.

being near to good schools would be great, but we're now too late to apply in the normal way for state schools as DS1 starts reception next september . he might end up at cranmore school in west horsley so i am trying to find somewhere nice to live that's roughly on that side of woking. do you know what ripley and send villages are like? or even in woking itself on that side?

DH often needs to drive to work so i am also trying to factor in road access! i will need phil and kirsty soon!

currently i am in richmond borough and am fed up with not being able to park near my house, so this move will have to get me a detached house with its own parking!

your shops sound great. hope you enjoyed your haircut .

nannynick i see where you are on a map now: up near bagshot way. i guess i am looking more to the south and south west of woking...

Hi, I used to live in Send until 2 years ago. Will just put the DS's to bed and come back to this thread in a bit.

Ripley is lovely, you can cut across country to get to Effingham station for trains into Waterloo (and so miss the awful traffic in Woking). I would avoid Woking town centre (and Goldsworth Park) at all costs.

The Horsleys are nice, Ockham & Hatchford also decent (more blessed in terms of quality of houses than things to do though).

I grew up in that area but moved away a few years ago. Have very fond memories!

I used to live in Maybury, hated it.

Hi we lived in Send until two years ago and we loved it except for the busy main road (trucks use it as a cut through to Woking and the A3, it's a popular place for HGV's to learn to drive too).

There are some lovely quiet roads in Send however. There is a lovely medical centre with a phamacy attached. A row of shops with sandwich shop, newsagent, Indian restaurant (very highly recommended) a dodgy (IMHO) chinese/ fish and chip shop. An evangelical church is in Send too. Oh and an active village hall with parking (the pre school nursery is held here). The infant school looks really really nice (fingers crossed our DS's get in there!)

Ripley is also nice, there are some exclusive/ private roads here. Church on the main road, village hall (the mother and toddler group meets there on a Weds morning). Both villages have a post office each.

Ripley main road is always busy as it's the slip on to the A3 north bound. There is a Junior school.

Clandon is great too however I'm not sure if there are any shops there at all. There is a church and an infant school. Some private/ exclusive roads and some VERY very nice properties to drool over.

If you'd like to CAT me I can send you a copy of the local Families magazine and the Grapevine which lists local schools and toddler groups and loads of other info.

Send, Ripley and Clandon are SO SO convenient for accessing the A3 north or southbound.

We moved to the outskirts of south Woking as two years ago house prices in the villages were just silly and we couldn't get a house we liked in our budget BUT...... well lets just say there are quite a few houses on the market to rent or to buy at the moment.

Hope this helps. Looking forward to meeting you if you do decide to move here. Good luck!

LBB which part of Maybury did you live in?

Hi Rioja. We lived on College Road for about 4 years

Oh God College road had that awful awful pub didn't it?? It's closed now thank goodness.

Are you still in the Woking area, did you know the Maybury Inn has re-opened as a restaurant?

That horrible pub on College Road was my horrible pub. I managed that shit-hole for 3 years.
We're not in Woking now, but have heard the Maybury has been re-done into an Ember Inn which are lovely pubs. It's the same company that owned the College Arms.

Oh bloody hell, sorry love!

Ah well at least you didn't like it either .

Hahaha. I just said to dp "Shall I tell this woman that the College was mine?"
Always get/got that response when I told people what I did. When I took over the pub had a really bad reputation and was quite rough. Glad it closed as wouldn't want to raise my ds there.
It had it's good points, but every single regular suffered from the whole God complex thing.
Look at us hijacking this thread!!

Oooops hope we're not thread killers!

Probably. Someone's got to be though

no, not threadkillers! helps me get a feel for the area and that so made me laugh about the pub!!!!

rioja thanks so much for that hugely helpful info on ripley and send. how are you finding living in south woking compared to village life? do you like being closer to bigger shops (Boots etc)? which way of life do you prefer? at the mo' i have a tesco express open till 11pm, a 2-min walk away, so it's going to be sobering to live in a village if we make that choice! go on, tell me what's great about village life

thanks for offering to send me stuff. i have actually just sent off for loads of stuff so will let you know if it's insufficient!

is morning traffic in woking really really bad? should DH avoid driving to woking station at all costs???! if you choose to use woking station should you make sure you're walking distance from it (or just choose somewhere like ripley and take the longer commute from somewhere like effingham as rindercella said?)

Traffic through Woking is a nightmare at rush hour times.
Depends where you want to go. I hated not being near shops and things, but I moved from Putney so was used to being able to go to McD's in my slippers!!

My DH loves being able to walk into town from where we are. We can reach the train station and town in about 25 mins from here. I mostly use the car though as DS's are so heavy to push up hill with shopping . I love being so close to all the big shops. Oh and the other day when car unexpectedly broke down on the drive I could just load up the buggy and go, my day wasn't ruined!

Village life is fine too BUT you've not got the shopping options and you HAVE to drive everywhere! From Send and Ripley, Clandon would be your nearest train station, it's on the London line from Guildford. BUT Woking is better, huge station car park and Woking to Waterloo is about 27 mins on a fast train.

As my Dad says 'you pays your money and you takes your choice'.

Let me know if there's anything further I can add.

I do prefer to live on the outskirts of a town I think though. I still visit all the friends we made in Send/ Ripley through post natal groups and playgroups. So still catch up on the village gossip!

There was a previous thread on living in and around Woking here which might have some useful info in. West Byfleet is also a nice place to live, convenient for A3, M25, train station with two fast trains per hour and a couple of slow ones as well. Lots of good primary schools and a Tesco Express!

Perhaps Cobham could be another alternative. Lots of nice shops incl. a Waitrose, and rumours of a M&S food hall opening soon and it's not far from Horsley at all. I used to live in Downside, a village a mile or two away from Cobham and went to school in Horsley. I even had to walk home from there a few couple of times when my Mum forgot to pick me up!

Times have you been to look at any houses/ villages yet??

hi rioja thanks for the bump!

going to visit cranmore school in the next 2 weeks and plan to look at send and ripley then. i also saw that there is a B&B in ripley so i might have a night locally and get a feel for the place.

DH doesn't think he will like woking so i think we're definitely going to have to go for a village with a nice feel, or maybe outer guildford.

with the market the way it is we might end up renting in the short term before we finally decide where to buy!

i actually feel a bit jittery about such a huge jump to village life. as you say, HAVING to drive everywhere seems a drag. despite what DH says i will definitely see what woking is like!

thanks again all!

I live in the town centre - Woking is brill. About 15 mins walk to train station from my house. You need about 500/600k to buy a decent house.

hi all, if you're still out there!

today we drove through woking - it was helpful to go with your feedback in mind. we didn't have time to look at the nicer bits. there seemed to be quite a mix of nice, and not so nice looking, areas (same as anywhere!).

i've been looking at train times and wonder if anyone knows what Worplesdon is like as a place to live? the commute to waterloo is fantastic (about 31 mins). seems too good to be true - half way between guildford and woking!