Moving to Hampton Post Reply

[Loz_85]

Hello all,

I am new to this website, so I hope it is ok for me to just plunge straight in with a question!

My husband and I are in the process of moving to Hampton Village and I was just wondering if it would be possible to get peoples opinions on the area? We had hoped to move to Teddington, but unfortunately, what we considered to be a healthy budget, and what would have got us a lovely house had we been looking this time last year, would now only stretch to a flat, so we decided to look at alternatives. Kingston, Twickenham and Hampton. We must have seen over 100 properties, but finally found a lovely house in Hampton, right in the village. We went back to the area at night, looked at OFSTED reports and did all the usual checks, everything seemed great, but recently I came across a report on the Richmond website that said five key areas that the council are focusing on for regeneration are; Ham, Heathfields, Hampton Nurserylands, Castelnau and Mortlake. Some of the statistics for Hampton Nurserylands weren't particularly promising- high levels of unemployment etc.

So I was just wondering if there are any other Hampton mums on here and how you find the area to be? Does anyone have children at Hampton Infants or Juniors? Our son is only 18 months old so we are a way off applying for schools at the moment, but I don't want to go through the expense of moving if we have to move again in a couple of years time. I know the secondary school option for Hampton isn't great, but that could change quite significantly in 10 years.

I really liked the village feel of Hampton and although it doesn't have any of the amenities of Teddington, it didn't feel like too much of a compromise.

Any advice, and ideas on activities to do in the area with toddlers, would be gratefully received.

Many thanks

[Loz_85]

Bump

[Teddersmum]

I think Hampton Village is lovely. I know someone who lives in one of the flats on the river and they are very happy there and it is a gorgeous spot. There is also a new primary school opened last year I think. http://www.st-marys-hampton-primary.org which you may want to look at. Good luck with your move, agree with you about Teddington prices, we moved fiveish years ago and I was shocked by prices then and now they are crazy high.

[Loz_85]

Thank you very much for your reply. I also thought that Hampton Village seemed lovely, but I wasn't sure about some of the comments I had heard about Hampton in general. Although a lot of the less positive comments seem to focus around the Dean Road/Bishops Grove area, and Nurserylands. Does anyone know what the Broome Road/Bloxham Crescent area is like?

I think we might be in catchment area for Hampton Infants, which I know is fiercely competitive to get into. I would probably like to try for St. James's too, although they only take 15 from the parish in Hampton, so that might a bit optimistic.

I guess it's not too far to Teddington for a bit more variety! x

[Sunshine_State]

Hi,

We moved to Hampton last year (reluctant move from Twickenham due to house prices) and were also nervous about some comments about the North-West part, but we now absolutely love Hampton, and prefer it to Twickenham.

An estate agent told us as long as we stayed east of Oak Avenue, we'd be in the nicer areas, and I think that's broadly accurate. That said, there is a lot of money going into improving that NW part, and Hampton as a whole is booming as people are getting priced out of other areas.

The roads round the village, and around Carlisle Park are really nice (we're near the latter, so actually treat Hampton Hill as our local shops/restaurants, rather than Hampton itself). Take a look at the houses around Wensleydale/Gloucester Roads if you want to reassure yourself that there's some money in the area!

Can't speak for the schools personally, as we're about to do the application process ourselves, but they all (except Buckingham) have a good reputation, and catchments have eased due to the new school added.

[littlemissy1]

Hi,
We made the move from Teddington to Hampton a year ago - house prices are a lot more reasonable! We live in the Bloxham Crescent area (again school catchment area choice although we haven't gone through that quite yet) and have been very happy. The area is a mix of council and owned properties but they are all well maintained. The train station is close enough and there are lots of parks around. Everyone has been so friendly.

The nurseylands area is a lot further up and to be honest isn't in the catchment area for Hampton Infants.

If you have any questions about nursery's etc give me a shout.

[Loz_85]

Thank you both very much for taking the time to reply. It's very reassuring to hear that you were both in a similar situation to us, and are happy with your decision to move. We are moving to Linden Road, so very close to Bloxham Crescent. It's just a little Victorian cottage, but after some of the places we were shown by estate agents, it seems like a palace! We actually had quite a lot of bad luck with finding anywhere (being guzumped on 5 occasions- and on one occasion, we had already paid out for the survey only to have the estate agents allow for somebody to come in with a higher offer). So we feel relieved to have found anywhere!

We will be very close to Hampton Station, which is important as my in-laws are in Kingston and help us out a lot with child care. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount of shops in Hampton, but I know Hampton Hill is only a 15min walk.

My son is 18 months old at the moment and we are very lucky to have a lot of help from our parents with child care meaning that he hasn't had to go to a child minder or a nursery, but we would like him to start going to a play group maybe a couple of mornings a week once he turns two, just so that he gets used to socialising with other children without having a familiar adult around. Does anyone know of any good places we could try? I have booked in for an open day at Hampton Court School, but the fees are quite high. Does anyone know much about it?

Thanks again for replying and for your helpful insight x