Foxton

FOXTON is attractive and quiet, with a pretty, but tiny green and some good timber-frame houses in the long main street. The village has two churches, a shop-cum-post-office, pub, primary school and village hall. There are all the usual societies for women, toddlers and the elderly, plus the formidable Foxton Gardeners Association which organises a regular September show. Foxton tends to be rather sought-after because of the railway station and its proximity to Cambridge. A Grade II listed, two-bedroom semi in need of work costs around £200,000.

Barrington nearby has a huge set-piece green with thatched cottages on one side and a fine church on the other. The Cambridge factor is a significant influence on prices. A four- to five-bedroom house on the green cannot be bought for less than £440,000. There are some modern developments discreetly tucked away in cul-de-sacs, where four-bedroom detached houses sell for around £325,000 to £400,000. An acre or two of land, however, could put the price up. Clunch, the chalk-stone used so extensively in local building, was quarried nearby.