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The best places to live for commuters: Cambridgeshire

Country Life selects the best places to live in Cambridgeshire based on quality of life and an easy commute into London.

Brampton, Cambridgeshire. 23rd Jan, 2015. UK Weather: 23 January 2015, Brampton, Cambridgeshire, UK. Frosty conditions with the clouds and trees reflected in the still water of the River Great Ouse, after overnight temperatures well below zero.
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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.

best places to live for commuters cambridgeshire

Kings Parade, Cambridge.
(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)

Brampton

Commute: Huntingdon (London Kings Cross, 48 minutes). Drive to station: about 4 minutes. Frequency of trains: 3 per hour (peak). First train in: 4.25am; last train home: 12.04am. Annual season ticket: £5,012. Annual car-park ticket: £825

The Country Life verdict: Samuel Pepys lived here for a time. Home to Huntingdon Racecourse and an excellent collection of shops.

Best address: Pepys House.

Alternatives: Godmanchester, Hemingford Abbots.

** Read our complete list of the 50 best places to live near London by county

Country Life
Country Life

Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.

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