Where to live 🤷🏼‍♀️ Cheltenham/ Cotswolds area

[Jbirds]

Hi all,

Looking for some advice. We’re thinking of moving towards Cheltenham (something rural). We want good schooling (primary) and a house with some land in a small, friendly village (chocolate box village would be idea). Any recommendations as to where we should look? We have a good budget for the house and would like something traditional. Safety is really important to us as we have a young boy who is our reason for the move away from our current area. My DH would need access to a hospital for work too. We are also motivated by the grammar school choice in the Cheltenham area, so don’t want to be too far from there.

Any and all advice (if friendly) is welcome and would be much appreciated.

Ooh depends what your budget is really!

Proper chocolate box is your typical stow, burford etc but they’re a little further out. If the budget is a little smaller Shurdington/Leckhampton/Charlton Kings is lovely or there is Prestbury/Winchcombe

Can’t believe I forgot Northleach too, that’s lovely

Thanks for your swift reply. I’m currently looking up your suggestions. 😊

For price- we’re looking at the £700k mark as a max.

Ah well if I had that budget I would go out towards Stow on the Wold/Bourton or maybe even down Minchinhampton, Box etc near Stroud. Not an easy school commute though! Cheltenham and surrounding area properties are usually around the £500k mark so well in budget but not as pretty as the towns a bit further afield

Best of luck searching anyway! ☺️

Grammar schools also in Stroud.

What about over into Monmouthshire? A number of excellent private schools in both Monmouth and Hereford, and very pretty very rural villages. Hospitals in Hereford, Abergavenny, Cardiff and Bristol very doable commmutes.

@andanothernewname we have looked towards Malvern and did look at the private school route for a while but decided that we would prefer to try for grammar (after much research) and if that didn’t work out then we would take the private school route (after much saving). Because of this, we wanted to be close to both options, which lead us to Gloucestershire. One of our biggest priorities is the schooling for my son. We really wanted a nice primary school for him too (state). We’re open to anywhere as long as the commute isn’t too much for my son when he’s ready to begin secondary school.

Gloucester and Cheltenham are both about an hour so that’s a pretty long commute, I’d not be keen to go that far with mine. It’s a shame because it sounds like it otherwise would meet your needs perfectly. I know there are some outstanding state schools but not grammar.

You could look over the border into Worcestershire, where there are lovely villages, great schools and you can still access the Gloucestershire grammar schools if you want to. Plus good private schools nearby and a bit cheaper than the Cotswold villages.

Churchdown between Gloucester and Cheltenham is nice.