cheap - and commutable to central London - possible?

dander

I agree - for Bloomsbury the most sensible stations to come in to are Kings Cross, St Pancras and Euston - all easy walking distance to Bloomsbury.
If you've got a lot of family and friends in Yorkshire, you could perhaps look at somewhere on those lines with good connections to the north - either by road or rail.

I don't know anything much about the St Pancras and Euston lines and where they go, but I do know a bit about the Kings Cross section, and I agree that you will get 3 beds in North Herts for £180k, but (at the moment) that kind of price is the bottom of the 3-bed market and you won't get a huge choice. If you go a bit further out, you'll get more for your money. And if you're not commuting every day, and you've only got a short walk at the other end, the extra distance won't hurt too much.

I think North Herts, Beds, Cambs and North Bucks would be the places to start looking.

kunekune

Wow! I took a day out of the site and look at all these replies.

To emphasise: Thanks for the thumbs up on the whole idea, I can see that it could work, especially as the standard teaching load is less than 6 hours a week, so you really can cram it into 1-2 days (I teach 12 hours a week at the moment, over 4 days). But I haven't even applied yet, partly because DH is a bit biased against the idea of me being in London and partly because I'm not convinced I'm clever enough. (Or glossy enough: the staff pictures on the law school website were VERY glossy!)

We have no particular attachments to where we are at the moment, it's accidental we came to Yorkshire, the only family DH has is in Scotland (my only job application so far is for Aberdeen, waiting to find out if shortlisted) and my first choice would be Edinburgh (though not living IN Edinburgh, for financial reasons). I'm not in a department that entered RAE, let alone a 5*, hence the nerves. But I need to move on, because my emphasis on research isn't a good fit in a sausage factory, and the cv is looking quite solid this year. However, there is no need to get really serious and start looking, this is more fact-finding to help me decide whether to put my name in (they want 9 copies of the application!!!).

Your answers have given me pause for thought. Renting is obviously always the first stage, but I don't want to stay renting for ever, we're not getting any younger, and need some stability. My original ideas had been based on where I knew, which was Ipswich, Norwich and other places along the line into Liverpool Street. Then last weekend I was in Bedford, so I have some sense of what those places are like. Schools are important - the children aren't babies, and we have to consider special schools as well as a good quality primary/secondary. We certainly can't and won't cram into somewhere too small, we have four beds at the moment and could easily use more!

For the person who mentioned Goodenough House, it's cool, isn't it! I have a friend from New Zealand who is living there in a little one bedroom flat, and I've visited a couple of times and had a picnic in the garden square. But I think (a) it's only for students, and only international students at that, and (b) even their married accommodation is very small and relatively temporary, which doesn't work when you need to get children into school.

It's fun to dream.

MrsE_2

Gingernutmeg wrote: »

Sorry, but I wouldn't recommend Bexleyheath, Welling or Bexley. Bexley council is awful, and the schools are fine if you can get into one of the grammars, absolutely appaling if you can't. Yes, it's a cheap area but it's cheap for a reason. If you *have* to live there then Bexley is nicer, but you pay for it and again you're still having to deal with Bexley council. I'd avoid Welling, the Sidcup side is 'nicer' in terms of houses/crime, but in general it's not a nice place at all. The same goes for Bexleyheath, you've got the same issues with schools and tbh I never found it that nice a place. I also hated the commute into London, it took ages at the best of times and the trains were always either full to bursting or full of drunks. Expensive too, and at 45/50 mins a journey, very long.

Personally I think there are much nicer places to live that are easily commutable to London - we live in Wilts now and it's still only an hour to Paddington from the town we live in, it could take that long from Welling/Bexleyheath. We've got a bigger, cheaper house, a nicer atmosphere generally, a better landlord and at least we aren't trapped in the M25.

As an ex-Londoner I totally agree with you about most of SE London & north Kent. All that area mentioned above is near Thamesmead too:eek:

When I moved out, I went Surrey, NOT kent;)

hethmar

I honestly think people are too down on the south east of London. It has some beautiful views and wooded areas and great history.

Even the notorious Thamesmead does have some nice areas and its only notorious because of a scam perpetrated by mostly foreign gentlemen who bought up blocks of flats and then sold them at highly inflated prices to people who wouldnt normally be able to get a mortgage, through using their own bent surveyors and of course people began to default.

Gingernutmeg

I lived in SE London for a year and hated it - for what you pay, there's no quality of life there. Thamesmead is horrible, acres and acres of red-brick new builds with no facilities beyond the bleak 'out-of-town' centre with Morrisons, Argos, Iceland, Wilkos and whatever discount stores survive there for a few months. We looked at flats there and the area was full of people just wandering, with nothing to do and nowhere to go - there were no shops, few bus-stops and it just seemed so dead. The general quality of the housing was pretty poor too. I just can't see the attraction to places like Plumstead, Welling, Bexleyheath, Erith, Blackfen - OH and I moved there because it was cheap but we learnt a lesson, and we'd never live there again.

Yes, there are incredible views from the top of Shooter's Hill, but when you're woken at 3am AGAIN because the lovely 'family from hell' neighbours have committed ANOTHER armed robbery and there are fire engines, ambulances and police helicopters outside and police marksmen using your garden it kind of puts you off. The same goes for not being able to leave a window open because the local kids are climbing on your roof trying to break in - you make compromises when you choose to live anywhere but that was too much of a compromise for me. I'm all for 'edgy' but there's 'acceptable, fairly trendy, becoming slowly gentrified edgy' (think Shoreditch, Brixton et al) and then there's just plain 'don't look at anyone the wrong way, 'you aren't from round here' edgy'. I think those places I list fall into the latter category. I just wish we'd known that there can be such massive differences in 'London', it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that 'oh it's commutable and a bit cheaper but it's all pretty much the same' - it's not.

I'll admit that I'm a bit prejudiced as we suffered with the world's worst letting agent and landlords who were using far more than their fair share of crazy, but I can't honestly see why anyone would want to buy there - £250,000 for a 30's semi in Welling??? Erm, no thanks .... And yes, I'll admit there are nice bits of SE London - bits of Greenwich are lovely, ditto Blackheath, but we could've rented in Putney or Richmond if we'd been able to pay those kind of rents. No competition really, in my mind.

hethmar

Well, I guess it comes down to the experience you have had - I live in an absolutely beautiful town in Norfolk but we had NFH move in to the next house and that has spoilt a true paradise. Its the luck of the draw really - you could live in Chelsea and have a NFH next door.

dander

I lived in south east london for many years and I liked it a lot. But I wouldn't want to commute from a longer distance in that direction, mainly because the trains tend to be slower trains with more stops and the major bottleneck at London Bridge, meaning the journey is always sticky through there. And I think down in that corner, you're a bit trapped by London, you're always trying to get round it or through it to go anywhere - or at least I was!

neverdespairgirl

Gingernutmeg wrote: »

And yes, I'll admit there are nice bits of SE London - bits of Greenwich are lovely, ditto Blackheath, but we could've rented in Putney or Richmond if we'd been able to pay those kind of rents. No competition really, in my mind.

I would go for Blackheath / Greenwich over Richmond etc any day of the week - I think they are cheaper as well as nicer.

neverdespairgirl

kunekune wrote: »

But I haven't even applied yet, partly because DH is a bit biased against the idea of me being in London and partly because I'm not convinced I'm clever enough. (Or glossy enough: the staff pictures on the law school website were VERY glossy!)

So you'd be in the Faculty of Laws?

Go for it - I was there for my LLB and LLM, and loved it. Don't remember the staff being that glossy, though!

hethmar

Surely there are huge tower blocks in Richmond?