Calling all York-folk!

[Dottoressa]

I've posted before that we're moving to York; however, we are now getting to the looking-at-houses stage. We are seeing this house tomorrow - but would love opinions, good or bad, on the general area/road/anything at all! On the face of it, there is nothing not to like - but we don't know York well, so there may be all kinds of things wrong with it that we know nothing about (like the nearest children are ten miles away, or there are students in the back garden...)

Any advice would be very gratefully received!

Just bookmarking for the update on today's viewings.

Dottoressa - I hate to break it to you but I was talking house porn with a friend and a friend of theirs was apparently making an offer on the Heslington house. It's all a bit 15th hand - but it may be off the market.

I think that Stockton Lane house is gloomy - but not the area as a whole. The big problem with that house is that they are trying to sell the garden as a building plot - which leaves the house with much less garden and a brand new house on their door step. Hardly an attractive prospect! If I were offering on it I woul tell them to stop being greedy and leave it intact. I suspect that's what interested people have told them actually but they just won't have it! I note the planning permission dates from August 2007. Wouldn't you have thought they'd have given up on it by now...

New Walk Terrace is gorgeous - you are quite right there.

Viewings tomorrow lunchtime, so I shall report back!

I shall keep my eye on the Heslington house. At the moment, I think we should live in a tent and wait for something to come up on New Walk Terrace...

New walk terrace...wheres that..off to google!!

V. nice!

Yes because it's WEDNESDAY today isn't it - NOT THURSDAY - stupid me

New Walk Terrace is lovely - I think a saw a house for sale down there once - about three years ago....

I stand corrected - closer to two years....time for the leetters through the door?

Evening all,

NL - that's a great bit of info!

Well, we saw the three houses today...

The Mount - could be lovely, but needs a vast amount spending on it - plus the layout doesn't really appeal. There's a right of way across the back garden, which means you couldn't fence it off to keep the children in. It's obviously in need of structural TLC as well as cosmetic improvements, so it's a no.

Clifton Dale - great kitchen and playroom, but feels very hemmed in on all sides, and the garden is very overlooked. Plus it's too 'finished' for our tastes - there's absolutely nothing to do to it. A nice house, but not for us.

Tadcaster Road - now, that's v interesting. It's very spacious (space for a music room plus two studies and a guest room), and there's scope to make it much nicer. It's in need of updating (it has a yellow bathroom suite), but it's structurally fine. The garden is fantastic, and DH approves of the garage as a workshop. There's storage for bikes, and a veggie garden/secret garden for the children. We are going to arrange a second viewing! It's also very readily affordable, with money left over to do the renovations. A definite maybe, as they say on Relocation, Relocation!

Well that sounds like a profitable day then. The Tadcaster road one is the big white semi with the lovely looking garden and awful kitchen isn't it? I like the look of that and the location would be great for you - easy enough to pop across to the South Bank for shops or up to the big tesco. Hope you get your second viewing soon - though what HBM and I will do without this thread I don't know! Maybe somebody else will come along with aspirations to move to York...

NL - yes, that's the one! The kitchen has lurvely wood cladding. The garden is fab, though, and the house would be v handy for the Mount. If this thread ends, we'll just have to meet up in real life and set up a relocations company!

Yes I'm starting to think I might have a knack for it

Is the garden as big as it looks on the pictures? I'll have to have a cycle out that way

Ooo exciting that you ahve seen one you like. And i agree..im loving house hunting with such an amazing budget !!

Yes to a meet up though...i can advise you on wallpaper next!!

NL and HBM - okay, then, it's a meet-up in the Pig and Pastry once we've moved!

NL - Yes, the garden is as big at it looks in the pictures -plus there's an additional bit (the veggie bit) that you can't see in the photos. This bit alone is about twice the size of the 'building plot' of the £1.2million one on Bish. Road!!

Dottoressa - do you actually live in York now?

If not, I would advise you try to drive past the house at 8.00 - 8.45 on a mid week day on several mornings as if you are driving in to York to drop the kids at school. The traffic can be utterly horrendous up the Tadcaster Road and you need to make sure you can do it in time to get the kids to school. Doing the Mount and Minster in one journey through that kind of traffic every day could be stressful.

House does sound nice though. Hope it works out. I agree with your views on the other ones.

The traffic on the Mount isn't great - but Fulford Road, Holgate Road, Bootham all have the same problems. It's hard to avoid really. The good thing about Tadcaster Road as a location is that you could very easily cycle or walk to the Mount and that might be an option for one parent whilst the other tackles traffic. You don't have to drive either - you could take the bus to the station or Rougier street and then it's five minutes walk up to the Minster. Bus is not much quicker than car - although it would save you ploufghing up over Lendal Bridge in the traffic - which is another slow spot but it would be less stressful if you allow plenty of time.

Agree, surely the whole point of living on the Mount is exactly that you dont have to drive the schoool runs. Cycling would be the easiest and quickest option but also doable to walk to both schools, or as dot says get the bus to the station. Though TBH could be quicker to walk.

I'll be testing out Tadcaster Rd at rush hour this week, as DD has a taster day at the Mount, and I have to get her there for 8.30am! As we're 25 miles from York at the moment, that will mean an early start...

If we were to get the Tadcaster Road house, one of us would definitely walk to the Mount, and the other of us would probably bus to the Minster (as NL suggests). However, we gather someone else is also interested in Tadcaster Road, so we may be out of luck anyway!

We looked at Marygate yesterday, which was nice but very small (relatively speaking - much smaller than our current house). They said they were moving to get more space for their DCs, which wasn't encouraging. They also said there aren't any other children around there. But in any case, it's really too expensive, especially for what it is. It is becoming clearer and clearer that we'll either get space or location, but we're not going to get both for our budget. A house like the Tadcaster Road one would, it seems, be a good compromise.

How did you get on with the traffic this week??

oooh exciting, i remember your first thread Dotoressa.
i live really close to tadcaster Rd, and it is lovely round there.

There seem to be quite a few York mums, maybe we should meet up.

Jooseyfruit - I was just going to hijack and suggest that.
We did a York meet-up a couple of years ago, it was just me, Squonk and Thehairybabysmum but was v nice . Maybe a picnic in the summer?

excellent, that would be great.
let's make it so!!!

thread here

I know I'm jumping in at the end here BUT I have lived in York for 40 yrs (since age 13) and now live in a small development on Tadcaster Road, opposite the Holiday Inn. I'd like to give the good, bad and ugly about Taddy Road. The good - Fox and Roman Pub, Petrol station grocery store, Ashby's Deli, Fish & Chip shop, fab little library, able to walk to races, can use Knavesmire for walking, jogging etc and much improved now the all weather track has been laid. Active Church community. Local History group. Good bus service. (There are other facilities which I do not use - Chinese take away, dog washateria(!), health club/pool at the Marriott hotel, hairdressers, vet, florists). The Bad - traffic on race days is heavy, but even that has improved now they have altered the arrangements for cars coming to the Races. Rush hour traffic is bad but no worse than anywhere else in York which these days is just a busy place - we went to Scotland at the weekend touring by motorbike and did 700 miles, the first jam we found was coming back into York and it started about five miles out of the City on the A59! There is a bus lane on the Tadcaster Road so you just sweep by if you go by bus.
I can't think of any more bad and as for the ugly - this surely has to be the nicest approach road into the City.
As you can tell I like this area!

Hello Cathy, how are you...good i hope and no dount busy!!

Yes im up for a meet up...the more the merrier!

Well... It appears that we have bought the Tadcaster Road semi with the fab garden!

I took the DCs to York last Thursday for their respective school taster days. I was a bit anxious about the traffic on Tadcaster Road at 8.20, but it was fine - much easier than getting out of Leeds, at any rate.

We parked at the Mount School and dropped DD off, then DS and I walked to the Minster. It took us 13 minutes, though we are fast walkers. As I had four bags of second-hand uniform to carry following DS's morning at school, we got the bus back to the Mount, which was all very straightforward.

Following that, DH and I went back to York yesterday for a second look at the semi and to meet the vendors, who were lovely. All in all, we both felt that the combination of size, garden, price and location seemed a good one. It's a very short walk from the Mount School, which will be nice for DD, and it satisfies DH's need for a manly retreat in the form of a big garage.

It's not the style of house that we'd normally go for, but there's lots of scope to make it much nicer inside (such as getting rid of the banana bathroom and pine cladding). The fact that we sold our own house last week - before it even went on the market - did give our search some added impetus. Our buyers want to exchange in three weeks' time with a view to moving in July, so we may have a summer in York to look forward to!

Dorothy - I was so relieved to read your post today. I had sudden visions of you saying 'avoid T. Road like the plague', so I'm delighted to hear the reverse. Now I will have to try to find out where there are things like Rainbows/Brownies/Beavers so that the DCs can make some friends.

Joosey - hello!! So are you going to be a sort of neighbour? That would be very exciting.

I will definitely be up for a meet-up once we are installed!

Thats fab....v. excited for you!!

Glad the drop offs worked well, the traffic was bad last week too.

Summer in york..lovely place to be!