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.
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
