Huntingdon and Godmanchester

Posted on 2015/11/15 10:04:26 (November 2015).

[Sunday 8th November 2015]
Having bought a very modestly sized flat, in a part of London which is hardly Belgravia, it's not an unrealistic prospect to think seriously about one day having a second home somewhere a bit, well, nicer. Whilst most people in our position seem to just focus on saving their pennies to buy a bigger place in London, maybe even a house, I'm not really that enthused by the idea of shovelling more cash onto the London property bonfire, and given that a spare bedroom could easily cost us three hundred grand, I can't help but think of all the things you could do with that money instead.

Whilst I'd always rather liked the idea of Herefordshire, or of course somewhere near the sea, Robin had very sensibly pointed out that if a place is too far from London we'd end up hardly ever going there, and it would just be a waste.

So given my office will be moving to Kings Cross next year, I thought it might make sense to look at places which you can get to from Kings Cross within, say, an hour, but which felt fairly rural. Thus today we decided to have a look at Huntingdon / Godmanchester. I rather liked the idea of a defunct county - Huntingdonshire - and I'd seen pictures of neighbouring Godmanchester which looked quite nice.

Possibly not the nicest of weathers in which to experience the area - it was rather grey and a bit chilly. Regardless though, on arrival at Huntingdon station we trudged dutifully across the meadows to Godmanchester, where we were greeted by a very Autumnal scene - a large tree which had shed most of its leaves, overlooking the famous Chinese bridge. It was quite a nice spot, despite the weather.

It would have been nice to have had the time to wander round Godmanchester a bit more, which seemed to have some quite attractive houses, and looked generally quite pleasant, but we hadn't left London quite as early as I would have liked, and lunchtime was already upon us, so I thought we should proceed quickly to the place I'd chosen to eat - the King of the Belgians pub, in Huntingdon/Hartford.

En route as a surprising coincidence we bumped into a family we know from London who we often see at the playground next to Erika's nursery.

The King of the Belgians was very much a locals pub, and I found it rather delightful. Both the owners and the locals were all very welcoming, and the food was hearty and had a definite home cooked feel.

Chie had an appointment back in London later in the afternoon, so we had to make a swift exit from the KOB once we'd finished out lunch, and had booked a local taxi to get back to the station.

Once back at Kings Cross Chie went off to see her friend, and Erika said she wanted to get the bus back home.

On balance, whilst I quite liked our little foray into Huntingdonshire, I'm not sure we were sufficiently taken with it to seriously think about buying a place there. Maybe we hadn't really given it a fair crack of the whip given the weather, but I couldn't really imagine living there.

We went to Godmanchester once for a wedding. Remember it rained, so wasn't very clement then either ... :-|

Posted by Nigel at 2015/11/22 20:38:01.

Post a comment