Calling all Cambridgeshire folk!

[HarrietTheSpy]

Please tell me about March and if you know it a village called Manea. Near Ely. Pretty? Pretty friendly? Close to decent schools (state or private?) Live in outer London now - would you bother to go here for a big relocation or would you keep looking elsewhere? Interested in Essex/Cambridgeshire.

xx

Oh dear I'm afraid I have to add to the voices of doom re: Manea. I live in Cambridge and work in Ely and Fenland so visit there often. Ely I could imagine living in but any further out no way and I am a country girl at heart born in wilds of West Wales.
The Fenland scenery is an acquired taste (although sunsets are lovely), most people in a village like that work on the land and have lived there for generations-cosmopolitan it ain't. I really think you would be isolated and lonely.
As a young child I loved the freedom of roaming around free in the countryside but as a teenager I hated it. 40mins drive to nearest shops/cinema/bar. I used to guilt trip my parents into being the taxi service because they chose to live in there- you have been warned!

Grendls that house is gorgeous. I'm just looking at exactly where Downham Market/Sotke Ferry is. It's a bit scary the estate agent is in Kings Lynn, it seems like it's going to be a bit far for us.

Thanks again all - have really appreciated the responses. We're going to go anyway though .

Did you hear that the tortoise who survived a major house fire this week lived in March? See, what you can pick up in Metro.

Okay, firstly, I want to thank everyone for their time and advice. I have to say, it was all 100% accurate. Let NO ONE ever doubt the wisdom of Mumsnet!! Think my husband, always the deepest of sceptics of this habit of mine, is now its most ardent fan.

Not sure I could have truly ever stayed away from this house, mind, but this is not your fault.

For those of you still with me on this (epic) journey, I wanted to tell you know it went.

Ely is fantastic - thanks for the Boathouse recommendation, they were lovely lovely and the food was great. So nice down by the river, I was getting great vibes for the area. Kings School - excellent feel about it, only the vaguest of doubts I'd get DD in, having not put her down on the waiting list at birth. Seemed like that sort of place.

It is completely true to say that the fit between My Spy Family and Manea would not have been a natural one. You were right - this area of the Fens...no no not for us. I was getting all excited when I realised we were going to see windmills, as saw many when visited the area around Ely last time, but they didn't seem to follow us into the area around Manea. Not picturesque. Just not. Just say no. No. (Watch - this post will now flush the Fen Fans out, having kept silent all the way through last wk!!)

However, it was the house that was the true shocker. After sending a hugely detailed email, equipped with a link from Google Earth (clearly a couple of years out of date) and orders to the E Agent tell me if the garden finished where we thought it did - no reply - we got there and of course the farmer selling it had hacked right the way back to within about twenty feet of the house. Seven bedroomed house, HUGE GINORMOUS field in back. "This is how much I am willing to share with you. The rest I plan to sell off to a haulage company/Barrett homes/the prison service." He had even gone so far as to put up a hideous fence, the first thing you saw through the windows out back, which would have to come down because it was a ridiculous height anyway. My oldest daughter would have been over it in a shot.

Internally, not only had there been some dodgy DIY going on, but the original builders must have been on something frankly. Secret stairways leading up to rooms which looked like they'd been aprt of the original house. Oddest of all - no hallways on the second floor. Just a load of interconnecting rooms. Then a third floor - which I think must have been added later, with the ceilings lowered on the floor below. I could go on and on. Needs £200k doing to it. Maybe more? Then you could find the leafy set of trees next door torn down to make way for said business venture. And driving a long, long way to decent schools.

DH and I were reflecting on which of the ex-farmhouse properties we'd seen over the years was taking the mick the most. On balance, it's probably not this one actually. SUpposedly the owner has had so much negative feedback over the last several months re the garden he's willing to negotiate but probably to let you pay more for part of the field. Who knows.

Our epic journey included continuing up the A1 to Yorkshire and the Moors. We're pooped. Caught up with some friends in DH's home town of York - had the same stories to tell about the different characters of the schools to tell that we have where we are in London...think we are overcoming a serious case of "wake up and realise the grass isn't always greener."

Until next time....x

I have heard interesting things about March schools. Not sure i would recommend them on what i've heard but it could be a local rivalary thing as my ex was from another fairly local village. The area can be bleak if you are not used to flat countryside where you can see for miles. It does suit some, it doesnt suit others. I can tell you there is a good fishing shop and a large sainsburys in addition to a reasonable high street. I spent too many hours sat inside or out in the car whilst ex got his fishing bits. It will be a bit of a culture shock after london as the lifestyle is very different (IME)

opps sorry just realised thread lomger then thought and not read it through

DEM
Didn't strike me that March was THAT close to Manea anyway actually. It seemed to take a while to get anywhere out there.

Did you take in any nice places enroute to fenland?

Ely. Loved it.

Would you consider living in Ely?

Yup absolutely. However, DH and I both feel we kind of lost it over this one. So we're now in take a deep breath, go a bit slower mode vis a vis relocation.

If something seems to good to be true it usually is. A house that looks that good on paper for that amount of money was bound to have some serious flaws - wasn't it. Don't put all your eggs in one basket next time. It is possible to see 4 houses in one day if they are not too far apart - you can cover a fairly large radius around a town that you like.

I agree the dolly - I did think it was likely I was going to come away 'deflated' but I was annoyed that I had taken the time to email the estate agent to discuss the garden and they didn't bother to get back to me. I should have pursued it though, and I'm cross with myself on this point.

Yes but if the garden had been such a bone of contention, it would have been unlikely to have elicidated any information even with pushing for some. I like Ely and have heard good things bout the schools there. My only advice is to watch where you look as vast chunks of fen round that neck of the woods gets regularly flooded. And they have been mad and granted planning permission for land that floods. Do your research (ie speeak to a longtime local) about areas that flood and you will find your dream house eventually. I would consider moving back to that area if my circumstances changed.

That's a shame - but at least you aren't torn between loving the house and hating the location, which is what I thought would happen!

I hope you don't mind me sayng this, but are you sure you actually want to buy an old East Anglian farmhouse?

Quite a lot of what you describe as awful about the house layout is very normal for a farmhouse in this part of the world. Don't forget that these were working buildings designed to store food and house temporary workers, as well as for the family themselves to live in. An East Anglian farmhouse wasn't a private house as we think of it today, but a medium-sized business. So stairs going up to individual rooms, rooms with trapdoors into other rooms, rooms with enormous locks on the doors are all part of this history, and are specifically designed to be this way. One room in our house is an old cheese loft - and as such, it has a trapdoor to the dairy below, which are both designed to be as cold as possible, and have vast locks on the doors. Another 'bedroom' is a fruit storage room, with a 5 ft high door knocked through twenty years ago, to replace the former access through a ladder and trapdoor. ('Bedroom' because it currently isn't usable in winter due to lack of insulation)

Hallways and corridors are a luxury feature, and always have been - it's a way of exchanging space for privacy. Like a lot of luxuries, we see them today as necessary, but they are a comparatively modern 'invention'. Again, our house was a series of interconnected rooms downstairs and upstairs, and still is to a lesser extent. One upstairs bedroom was sliced into a corridor, lots of cupboards and a bathroom, for example, leaving a corridor with the window with the best view in the house. In order to get into our bedroom, you can either walk through a bathroom or another bedroom.

Our house also has the mysteriously varying number of floors thing going on - we've lost an entire floor (although some walls and door are still in the attic), had the ceiling height lowered in parts, and then had it re-raised again. Climbing round the attic is great fun.

It sounds as though what you'd like is a period house with a layout comparable to a modern design house, but still relatively affordable. I think that may need to be a house that has always been of a relatively high social status, and that suggests to me you'd be better off with an 18th or 19th century former vicarage. This would probably have larger windows as well.

On the other hand, I found that I rapidly get better at reading farmhouse floor plans and spotting the most usual layout problems - you just have to look at every room on the plan and check how you get there from the other rooms. I'd say that when you see a super-cheap period house, it's a cue to look at the layout and check where the doors and stairs are. Though the house plan I once saw where it appeared you actually had to go outside to go from one half of the house to another may have been a misprint.

Hope this is helpful - best of luck with the next house

p.s. the previous owner of our house always says cheerily that he thinks our garden was left too small once they'd turned the old barns into houses and a business park.

"Kings School - excellent feel about it, only the vaguest of doubts I'd get DD in, having not put her down on the waiting list at birth. Seemed like that sort of place."
I doubt that you would have enormous difficulties getting your DD into Kings School Ely. It isn't in London, there's a recession on. A friend of mine got her DS in to the senior school at very short notice.
Ely is definitely on the up and would be a much wiser choice if you don't think you'd find what you wanted in Cambridge/S Cambridgeshire.

Hi

Just seen this thread having been off line for the last 10 days. We have just moved to a village just north of Cambridge from NW London. Have only been here for a week but already feeling the benefits - esp for DS who is 7 - unbelievable really. I was distraught at leaving our wonderful Edwardian house for a 30s semi but feeling very positive about things now. We looked into it a lot and researched a lot of villages close to Cambridge didn't consider the Fens though at all. Here we have the benefits of village life but are only 3 miles away from central Cambridge and plenty of places to get a latte! So Harriet I wouldn't let the Manea experience put you off but take everything the EA say with a pinch of salt. We had some wasted journeys up from London - really annoying. Best of luck with your search and keep us informed!
Mins

Thanks again all

Mins - not put off at all. Lily, called school - you're absolutely right, plenty of room for next year for DD1. Or year after. Get the idea. Going for an open day on 19 Sept.

Grendels - So very right as usual, and interesting to get the info on farmhouse properties in the area more generally. I had some worries about the floor plan relative to what I was seeing on the outside. I do agree one would get better at reading them, as you say. It's not the quirkiness exactly which was the issue. And listening to you describe it as part of the history of the area increases it's appeal for me actually. What I didn't know though - and the estate agent didn't have a clue, couldn't answer any questions - was whether what we were looking at represented the most ambitious modern DIY job ever. When you knocked on some walls - with fireplaces, they sounded hollow, like they had been put in. But then why the fireplace? Was it a false ceiling or did they lower the floors? That was what was just too scary - I didn't know if we'd be taking it back to a shell. Definitely evidence of very modern DIY dodge too - in the "hay loft" a glass door, like a front door, being used as a window. But sealed. From both sides. So, turn the key it doesn't open. Interesting. Doesn't lead anywhere like a roof either. Just a door.

This house sounds like yours in that the floors are on different levels with doors leading to adventure too. You wouldn't want to seal all that up and I can imagine as the DCs got older cracking hide and seek games.

You'd have to love the house and the area to take this project on, that's the point.

Mims - congralations! I'm so pleased it's worked out for you. Have you discovered that there is an informal 'veg and flower farmers' market' run out of someone's front driveway every weekday? if you walk down the road that goes towardss Girton, on the bend opposite the little wood there's a house where they sell local fruit and veg. V. good place to go for your shopping. Also try going to the Red Lion for food / relaxed drink.

Harriet - yes, I think you're right that you'd have to love the house to take it on, but Mims has a really good point that you have to love the village it's in and be happy with the commute, schools etc, and I think that's always where Manea would fall down. Mims spent ages deciding exactly which village she wanted in Cambridgeshire!

I can make a couple of guesses at the odd hollow walls (this is just info for next time). If downstairs, people over the last 400 years have been blocking up larger fireplaces for progressively smaller fireplaces. Our dining room has a brilliant example of this. We actually have a vast 'missing' original 17th century fireplace (we have enough space 'missing' from the house to make a decent sized double bedroom!), which was then blocked up to fit a 19th century range, which was then removed and bricked up with a rather smaller range, which was then bricked up to fit in an elegant small fireplace, which was then removed to make a 'feature former fireplace'... Knocking the failing cement off the side of the fireplace revealed all the different ages of bricking in. So this would give some odd noises when you bang it. The other possibility is that a lot of the house was timber framed with an expanded metal lath with plastering on the inside. This gives a very odd noise when you bang.

Also, farmers are notorious for doing all their own building work, very badly, with whatever they happened to have lying around on the farm.

Anyway, now lets start planning your next farmhouse visiting trip.

Do you want a house where you can do all the renovations yourself as DIY, or are you happy to get an architect / specialist building company in?

I know you want to live in a village with a windmill Here's your chance to live in the village with the oldest post mill in England...

Because if you're up for the architects and builders, how about this one here, much better location, I think, interesting potential (at a glance, I think you could do a nice 4 bed, with a bathroom, ensuite and 3 good bedrooms upstairs, and 1 guest bed / den with shower room downstairs) - overpriced as is, but at £385,000, say, might be a good buy.

www.cheffins.co.uk/cheffins-property/fox-street-sandy-8382

HI Grendels mum - thanks for this. Not sure which is the road towards Girton though - but I'm sure it will become clear to me soon enough! Haven't tried the Red Lion yet - tried The Boot a couple of times but the Red Lion does look very welcoming! Your house sounds fascinating - very interesting!

Mins

Min - may I ask which Cambridgeshire village you settled on?

thedolly - we settled on Impington - good schools, v close to Cambridge city centre - nice vibe there, not too small. Not so good for DH commute but we figured it was worth it in other ways. Been here a week and so far so good! Where are you?