Another where to live thread!!! Near Wallingford??

[davido140]

Long story short... Ex and my son live in Wallingford, I live in basingstoke..

He now wants to come and live with me, no way in hell is he going to school in this dump, I'm only here for work and easy access to the train for London..

Any sugeestions on areas of Wallingford or preferably villages nearby where it's nice to live?

I understand I'll be lumbering myself with an 80 mile round trip to the office in basingstoke and a pain in the back-side commute into london (any tips on the London commute would be cool)

Top whack to spend in 300k so I think Henley on Thames, pangbourne and probably goring and streatley are out... need to get a 3 bed house with a garage for that money..


Nettlebed any good?

Cheers PH massive!

[Phil C]

Woodcote - Pangbourne (expensive - but then so is everything round there), top end of Caversham around A4074....maybe

[Toecutter]

How about one of the small villages near Didcot?

1) Not too far from Wallingford
2) Didcot has a Train station with regular trains to london
3) lots of the villages are lovely - such as harwell etc

Have a look of rightmove

[defblade]

We lived in Didcot then Wallingford, 13 years in total.

The whole area is Nice (except Berinsfield, a few bits of Didcot and Abingdon. But even they're lightweight on the horrible scale).

Nice.

Nice.


God, it's so NICE round there.


We had a knock on the door one night - 4 teenage lads. One holds up the wife's car and house keys "These were hanging out the boot lock on your car mister".


We bought a DVD of an old BBC kid's program for our daughter to watch. 3 seconds after we put it on I screamed "Oh no! I live in fking Trumpton!!" (Actually, I didn't saying "fking" as my 3 year lass was next to me. I can be Nice, too ). But it's true (only the flower lady now sells the Big Issue instead of flowers).


Follow your nose and your budget and I don't think you'll go far wrong.

If buying in Wallingford itself, or a few of the very very close areas, watch out for plans for massive gravel pits and housing estates around the edges in the near future.



And if you want your commute to go well, buy a motorbike (to skip the random queues which appear anywhere and everywhere) or leave at least 20 minutes longer than it should take - especially if you're going through Henley.

[Puggit]

What about Caversham, on the northern side of Reading? (admittedly I've just moved out of there to Tadley...)

Gives you access to Reading station for the train to Basingrad or London - and less than 30 mins drive to Wallingford.

[davido140]

Thanks for the tips! I think Reading or it's 'burbs is definitely out for me, The nice bits are way too expensive (e.g the nice bits of caversham and thats the only area that really makes sense for me) traffic is a pig at pretty much all times (caversham bridge!!), and when I lived there before it was a bit of a dump (IMO made basingstoke look nice, but then I was in the rattiest end of caversham) and I dont think it's got any better in the last 10 years...

Good point about the proposed development in Wallingford, I remember all the signs up in peoples gardens/windows now you mention..

As far as driving goes I'll be heading to basingstoke via pangbourne and the outskirts of theale so shouldnt be too bad on traffic, the odd tractor and dithering grannie aside. I've done the drive quite a few times in "rush-hour" to take the boy to school and then head back to work. It's not too painful. I just have to be careful to not crash whilst oggling the nice cars when I drive past the bentley and spyker garage in pangbourne...

Rightmove did come back with a lot of places in and around didcot, I will have to take a closer look.. isn't the whole town in the shadow of mister burns power plant though?

I think a look at google maps to get a few place names, then a drive around might be on the cards!

Thanks again, and any other insights keep 'em coming!

[illmonkey]

Avoid Didcot, its really not that great.

Are you after more village, or city centre? You've mentioned Henley and then goring.

There are some great villages about the area, which also mean you'll be good for some nice B-roads to work, before hitting some motorway.

[Piersman2]

I've worked in Basingrad a few times, in central London , in Slough, in west London, etc..

I live in Tilehurst, to the west of Reading, about 3 miles from Pangbourne.

Not a bad location for being able to get about, into town for trains, down to the M4 for London or out the back roads towards Pangbourne to get to Basingstoke etc...

Reasonable prices and a broad selection of houses starting with grotty stuff at the Reading side, but slowly improving as you head outwards, the further from Reading the nicer, with some very nice stuff amongst it all.

Can't say I've noticed any issues having moved here from Caversham about 3 years ago... saves having to get across the bloody river every morning.

I collect my kids from Sonning Common every other Friday on the way home from work, only takes 20 mins to get back from there so Wallingford wouldn't be too far away.

I've often quite fancied moving over towards Henley and that area, but the extra time for commuting anywhere with having to cross those bridges like I used to puts me right off.

[Steve_W]

Anything in Cholsey? IIRC, that's got a station on the London main line, via Reading for that bit of your commute?

A quick rummage on Right Move brings up this: 3 bed with garage - and I've saved you £5,000 off your target price!

Cars on the drive show someone who might be a PH'er!

Edited by Steve_W on Friday 27th August 10:24

[davido140]

Steve_W said:

Anything in Cholsey? IIRC, that's got a station on the London main line, via Reading for that bit of your commute?

The ex just told me to look at cholsey too.. cheers will have a gander

[russ_a]

Why not move back in with the ex?

[defblade]

davido140 said:

Steve_W said:

Anything in Cholsey? IIRC, that's got a station on the London main line, via Reading for that bit of your commute?

The ex just told me to look at cholsey too.. cheers will have a gander

Shanki-li (may be spelt wrong ) chinese restuarant over the Spar/mini Tesco thing in Cholsey is one of the nicest chinese's ever.

Cholsey is also slightly protected from development as the parish starts the other side of the Wallingford ring road and so they try and push stuff out that way - tack it on to Wallingford.

They do have a small problem with bored teenagers though as there really is nothing to do there except burn down the pavillion. Again.

[RichB]

russ_a said:

Why not move back in with the ex?

Or tell your kid to stop playing one parent off against the other.

[davido140]

RichB said:

russ_a said:

Why not move back in with the ex?

Or tell your kid to stop playing one parent off against the other.

He's not doing that really, he's had ample opportunity in the past but never really tried, possibly because the one time I caught him doing it I gave him such a bking he remembers it 4 years down the line!!!

Quite happy with the current GF thanks, dont want to go back to the mental one!

[DavidY]

If you're thinking of as faraway as Henley, then I would go a similar distance in the opposite direction. I lived in Wallingford for several years but then moved to Wantage, another market town. Not quite as pretty as Wallingford, but has more ammeneties, and cheaper housing. Also your route(s) to Basingstoke would incluide the fantastic Wantage to Newbury B road, any petrolheads dream. This road also provides a shortcut through Chieveley to the M4/A34 junction. Wallingford to Basingstoke would be a pain as you will spend a lot time getting through Pangbourne and then onto the A4 in the Mmornings, to then go to Aldermaston and through Tadley to Basingstoke.

davidy

[davido140]

DavidY said:

If you're thinking of as faraway as Henley, then I would go a similar distance in the opposite direction. I lived in Wallingford for several years but then moved to Wantage, another market town. Not quite as pretty as Wallingford, but has more ammeneties, and cheaper housing. Also your route(s) to Basingstoke would incluide the fantastic Wantage to Newbury B road, any petrolheads dream. This road also provides a shortcut through Chieveley to the M4/A34 junction. Wallingford to Basingstoke would be a pain as you will spend a lot time getting through Pangbourne and then onto the A4 in the Mmornings, to then go to Aldermaston and through Tadley to Basingstoke.

davidy

Back roads to padworth, mortimer, silchester, little london, then basingstoke! b road tastic! pain in the arse when you get to the hospital in basinstoke though, although there is always the back route via bramley into chineham...

ahhhh b road dorkiness at 2am!

Good point about Wantage though.. I'll take a look, probably too far from Walingford though, the idea really is that the boy can make it under his own steam between me and the ex, so a couple of miles of cycleable b roads is tops really.

[Highway Star]

Steve_W said:

Anything in Cholsey? IIRC, that's got a station on the London main line, via Reading for that bit of your commute?

A quick rummage on Right Move brings up this: 3 bed with garage - and I've saved you £5,000 off your target price!

Cars on the drive show someone who might be a PH'er!

Edited by Steve_W on Friday 27th August 10:24

Funny you should say that, when I was living in Wallingford, there was a PHer with a VX220 Turbo living in the local area.

I lived in Wallingford for 6 years up to last year and commuted to London for three of those, cycling to Cholsey station and getting the train from there. If its still going, there is one good train in the morning at about 7.30 which only stopped at the small stations between there and Reading and then went direct to Paddington, you could get a seat every day - took just under an hour to Paddington.

Cholsey is ok, but there is the odd bunch of kids, bored and hanging around, though I'm not sure they are any real trouble.

Wallingford is very nice, avoid one or two roads (you'll work out which ones they are quite quickly) and work out where the new development is going to be... £300k should get you something quite decent with 3 bedrooms. For a small town it has a good number of shops, good Waitrose, quite a lot of stuff going on (beer festivals etc.) and its location on the river is lovely.

You can get a lot more for your cash in Didcot, but its really not that great.

Almost all the little villages around there are very nice; Blewbury, North/South Moreton, East Hagbourne (very near Didcot, but really lovely), the Astons, Stokes etc.

Edited by Highway Star on Sunday 29th August 10:38

Edited by Highway Star on Sunday 29th August 10:39

[davido140]

nice one! ^^^^ that, is pretty much exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for!

Edited by davido140 on Monday 30th August 09:11

[Highway Star]

No probs, let us know if you need anything else. I was in Wallingford on Saturday, sounds like the housing development is on the back burner for now since the new government came in and is promising to give local authorities more say in where houses go.

My barber (!) reckons that there will still be some new building in the town, but not on the scale previously planned.