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Sun 14 Feb 2016
Grantchester
Commute: Cambridge (London Kings Cross/Liverpool Street, 52 minutes). Drive to station: about 8 minutes. Frequency of trains: 2 per hour (peak). First train in: 5.14am; last train home: 12.04am. Annual season ticket: £4,692. Annual car-park ticket: £1596.30.
The Country Life verdict: You’d never be short of inter-esting dinner-party guests here: it’s said to have the highest concentration of Nobel Prize winners in the world (most of whom will, no doubt, have gravi-tated the two miles there from Cambridge). Students like to punt here in the summer and have tea at the Orchard Tea Garden.
Best address: The Old Vicarage (once home to the soldier/poet Rupert Brooke, now home to novelist Jeffrey Archer)
Alternatives: Comberton (excellent state school), Histon
Cambridge
Commute: Cambridge (London Kings Cross/Liverpool Street, 52 minutes). Frequency of trains: 2 per hour (peak). First train in: 5.14am; last train home: 12.04am. Annual season ticket: £4,692. Annual car-park ticket: £1596.30.
The Country Life verdict: A beautiful but tiny city with a famously tight green-belt girth, which protects it from sprawling. A perfect combination of cosmopolitan and old-world charm.
Best addresses: Chaucer Road and Latham Road, says Chris Carey of Bidwells Cambridge, but beware the best houses go for £5 million upwards.
Alternative: Madingley, for great views.
Kings Parade, Cambridge.
"We rented a property through Vincent Shaw that was also managed by them, and they were brilliant. Christianne Tippler in particular who managed our property was always responsive, caring, and professional. We were worried at first since we had heard some bad stories about renting through letting agencies, but our experience was the complete opposite and I would highly recommend them."