Whats Dorking like, considering moving
Discussion
t part by the Sainsbury’s. 
Dorking is a nice little town. My wife has worked there for +20yrs and has a good vibe. We looked to move there quite a while back. It is quite small and has a small housing stock so you might find somewhere suitable. We ended up Bookham / Fetcham which has good train/road links and is pretty quiet. Lots more housing stock choice too. It depends on how much travel you want to the station for a commute. I’m (was preCV19) 25mins walk/10 Brompton to station.
TonyG2003 said:
Dorking is a nice little town. My wife has worked there for +20yrs and has a good vibe. We looked to move there quite a while back. It is quite small and has a small housing stock so you might find somewhere suitable. We ended up Bookham / Fetcham which has good train/road links and is pretty quiet. Lots more housing stock choice too. It depends on how much travel you want to the station for a commute. I’m (was preCV19) 25mins walk/10 Brompton to station.
Thanks for the response, theres a house in Fetcham we like actuallyBathroom_Security said:
p1stonhead said:
The OP’s £600k will not get much.
ummm.I mean i wont be crass and say what I have as a budget.
But...
How much you got?
Even a ball park figure to be honest may assist with appropriate best locations for the money.
Hi OP,
Like a few of the posters on here, I have lived in/around Fetcham for about about 15 years. I guess it all depends what you are looking for. I really like the village and the surrounding area - it is relatively quiet, the village has everything we need and if not, Leatherhead and the surrounding places (Cobham, Dorking, Esher, etc) certainly will. Decent pub at The Bell too. Access to the surrounding countryside is quick and easy, although I agree with some of the comments on here - getting into Leatherhead from Fetcham after about 7.30 in the morning can be tricky due to the traffic. I commute from Leatherhead Station into London - and have the choice of either SWR (into Waterloo) or Southern (into Victoria) - not particularly cheap though!
If you are into bikes at all, Box Hill is still the draw that it has been (I'm talking prior to Covid19 here).
Access to the M25, A3 is quick and easy (again, depending on the time of day) and getting to the coast takes no time at all.
All in all, a nice place to live.
Like a few of the posters on here, I have lived in/around Fetcham for about about 15 years. I guess it all depends what you are looking for. I really like the village and the surrounding area - it is relatively quiet, the village has everything we need and if not, Leatherhead and the surrounding places (Cobham, Dorking, Esher, etc) certainly will. Decent pub at The Bell too. Access to the surrounding countryside is quick and easy, although I agree with some of the comments on here - getting into Leatherhead from Fetcham after about 7.30 in the morning can be tricky due to the traffic. I commute from Leatherhead Station into London - and have the choice of either SWR (into Waterloo) or Southern (into Victoria) - not particularly cheap though!
If you are into bikes at all, Box Hill is still the draw that it has been (I'm talking prior to Covid19 here).
Access to the M25, A3 is quick and easy (again, depending on the time of day) and getting to the coast takes no time at all.
All in all, a nice place to live.
Lived in Dorking now for 17 years. Love the fact we’re surrounded by countryside for walking, running, cycling, horse riding and some ok driving roads. The latter get a lot better when you drop down into West Sussex. High Street is a bit crap but Guildford is near and Kingston too.
Trains into London run four times an hour but no fast ones so it's a minimum journey of 50/55 minutes.
Good variety of houses to suit most budgets. Avoid Goodwyns and Chart Downs imo. Apart from that it’s all fine.
PM with any more specific questions if you need to.
Trains into London run four times an hour but no fast ones so it's a minimum journey of 50/55 minutes.
Good variety of houses to suit most budgets. Avoid Goodwyns and Chart Downs imo. Apart from that it’s all fine.
PM with any more specific questions if you need to.
Lived in Dorking for 12 years, moved locally a couple of years ago, though still have the old house in Dorking, keeping our options open about going back there in the future.
It's a very nice market town, surrounded by countryside. Nice high street with a good range of independents. A decent-ish range of restaurants, with a couple of fancier ones. It's quite genteel, no clubs and a few pubs. Has an arts centre that converts into a couple of cinemas, and a good municipal pool / leisure centre. It also has enough car parks generally to cope with trade for the high street - much better in this regard than some other Surrey towns. Traffic has become a bit more of an issue in the last couple of years around rush hours. One thing that Dorking doesn't have is private schools. The state schools are generally rated Good, but no better.
Trains go twice an hour to each of Victoria & Waterloo and take about 50 minutes to do so. You will always get a seat on a train at Dorking, even in rush hour. The Victoria line trains are much more modern and pleasant to travel on. Parking for the station is an issue unless you travel very early or get there by bike. Dorking also has 3 stations, with the other stations on a line going east/west and links directly to Reading which is sometimes very useful as that is a major hub for other lines.
I note you also mentioned Leatherhead - there are some nice residential areas in Leatherhead but as a town it doesn't have as much to offer as Dorking. It is also much more of a business area - there are industrial parks and lots of serviced offices - which means that the town centre is busy by day but can be a bit dead by night. Leatherhead does get an extra train line through the station which means there are twice as many trains compared with Dorking and it shaves 10 minutes off the journey time, if that is a factor.
It's a very nice market town, surrounded by countryside. Nice high street with a good range of independents. A decent-ish range of restaurants, with a couple of fancier ones. It's quite genteel, no clubs and a few pubs. Has an arts centre that converts into a couple of cinemas, and a good municipal pool / leisure centre. It also has enough car parks generally to cope with trade for the high street - much better in this regard than some other Surrey towns. Traffic has become a bit more of an issue in the last couple of years around rush hours. One thing that Dorking doesn't have is private schools. The state schools are generally rated Good, but no better.
Trains go twice an hour to each of Victoria & Waterloo and take about 50 minutes to do so. You will always get a seat on a train at Dorking, even in rush hour. The Victoria line trains are much more modern and pleasant to travel on. Parking for the station is an issue unless you travel very early or get there by bike. Dorking also has 3 stations, with the other stations on a line going east/west and links directly to Reading which is sometimes very useful as that is a major hub for other lines.
I note you also mentioned Leatherhead - there are some nice residential areas in Leatherhead but as a town it doesn't have as much to offer as Dorking. It is also much more of a business area - there are industrial parks and lots of serviced offices - which means that the town centre is busy by day but can be a bit dead by night. Leatherhead does get an extra train line through the station which means there are twice as many trains compared with Dorking and it shaves 10 minutes off the journey time, if that is a factor.
I like Dorking. When I worked for the biggest employer in the town, it used to take 40 mins from my home in Kingston in the morning and around an hour going home in the evening.
I've noticed prices slowly rising over the years in Dorking so moved my property down to Horsham that's 20 mins down the road.
I've noticed prices slowly rising over the years in Dorking so moved my property down to Horsham that's 20 mins down the road.
austina35 said:
I like Dorking. When I worked for the biggest employer in the town, it used to take 40 mins from my home in Kingston in the morning and around an hour going home in the evening.
I've noticed prices slowly rising over the years in Dorking so moved my property down to Horsham that's 20 mins down the road.
I thought land was the expensive bit rather than the house I've noticed prices slowly rising over the years in Dorking so moved my property down to Horsham that's 20 mins down the road.
TonyG2003 said:
Dorking is a nice little town. My wife has worked there for +20yrs and has a good vibe. We looked to move there quite a while back. It is quite small and has a small housing stock so you might find somewhere suitable. We ended up Bookham / Fetcham which has good train/road links and is pretty quiet. Lots more housing stock choice too. It depends on how much travel you want to the station for a commute. I’m (was preCV19) 25mins walk/10 Brompton to station.
Hi Tony, we're looking at Fetcham ourselves. I tried to PM you, but you don't take emails. It would be great to learn more about the area and the schooling if you can post/PM.FWIW, took ours off the market in the end as it was over priced by about 50k
Want to move still but the market went mental last year as mentioned, basically priced out of what we want. Another 300k to the top of our mortgage limit doesn't or didn't seem to get us very much extra at all. An extra bedroom but plenty of compromises like small rooms, small garden etc. I'd have to move somewhere like Camberley or further out into Farnborough to get what I wanted, but then I'd be well away from where actually I wanted to live. Nor do I want to live somewhere like Camberley or Farnborough for various reasons
Now just loitering for a while to see if stuff goes tits up - not trying to be the guy that gets in while the market is low as its all relative but genuinely think bad things are looming this year.
Moan over..
Want to move still but the market went mental last year as mentioned, basically priced out of what we want. Another 300k to the top of our mortgage limit doesn't or didn't seem to get us very much extra at all. An extra bedroom but plenty of compromises like small rooms, small garden etc. I'd have to move somewhere like Camberley or further out into Farnborough to get what I wanted, but then I'd be well away from where actually I wanted to live. Nor do I want to live somewhere like Camberley or Farnborough for various reasons
Now just loitering for a while to see if stuff goes tits up - not trying to be the guy that gets in while the market is low as its all relative but genuinely think bad things are looming this year.
Moan over..
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