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There's a fair bit of rust in Rawtenstall 👋
Maryport
😂
My postal town, but I'm 6 miles into the country so not an issue.
As said Cockermouth is nice but a bit expensive, as are the surrounding villages. That said £240k would get a nice semi-detached.
Stoke-on-Trent!
More rural roads and tracks with plenty of elevation than you can shake a stick at. Literally cycle in any direction out of the city and you're in countryside within 15 minutes.
Cheap housing.
Perfectly placed to get to loads of decent cycling locations within an hours drive incl the Peak District, north Wales and Cannock.
A thriving cycling community for both road and mtb.
A plethora of excellent cycle shops.
If not stoke then Sheffield but the accents worse in Sheffield but it's a nice green city.
Guisley which is the other side of the moor to Baildon suggested earlier. Easy access to both Leeds and Bradford for work opportunities. Can get a 2 bed end terrace for £230kish - https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/112917938#/?channel=RES_BUY
I think you’ll struggle to find what you’re looking for anywhere in the Calder Valley other than Todmorden. Your garden/shed/not mid terrace combo eliminates almost every house in the area, there are an awful lot of terraces and an awful lot of no gardens! Then price eliminates the others.
You might find something in Halifax but maybe that’s not quite the idyl you have pictured. Good luck!
I'm all for picking somewhere new to live with a blank sheet of paper approach, but do you really have to buy a house? Surely renting in your new location is the best option?
Move quick half the civil service is going there
Darlo? Poor bastids!
Newcastle, County Down, think outside the box and move overseas 😉
Like all places you need to look at the area, Bacup has been flagged off above and I certainly wouldn't want to live in the centre or the Pennine estate but there's loads of new housing that's classed as Bacup that's not Brassic territory and is pretty reasonably priced. Burnley, Rochdale etc. are the same, avoid the centres and the wrong suburbs and there are some quite nice bits on the outskirts. Much of Bury isn't great and you pay the Manchester tax.
Hannah's right about Calderdale, it's all steep sided valleys.
Mid Portugal. surf, mountains, nice weather and food.
Hawick
come to Sweden!
Expressoal has it about spot on ... and be in no doubt there are bigger shitholes that the SE England. Middlesboro is cheap - and so is Grimsby ...
South Coast shit holes - must be Dover / Folkestone / Hastings - or Bognor ...
Cockermouth nice - since when ? Has there been a load of investment there in the last 20 years?
I lived in Stoke on Trent ( as well as many other places) - hated every minute of it. It may be cheap to live there - and very good reasons too.
All of this surely revolves around what job you can do - and whether you can get one in the chosen location. i.e if you are fisherman / work on the docks then SoT is definitely a non-no.
Cockermouth nice – since when ? Has there been a load of investment there in the last 20 years?
My last three years part time living there were fine, plenty of pubs, bars restaurants, nice vibe most of the time. Never any trouble except when the contractors got excited.
Cockermouth is pretty nice I'd say - flood-prone and a bit hard to get to/out of but otherwise decent. Near to some of the best bits of the LD I would say.
Cockermouth is lovely in my opinion, my sister-in-law lives there and we visit loads. Just don't buy a house at the bottom.
Sheffield has jumped the shark - 10 years of promotion as the "outdoor city" has, unfortunately, resulted in most of the outdoor bits being completely overrun 365 days a year. You can read in various places that the Peak District is the busiest or second busiest national park in the world (though the PDNP themselves dispute it, but not with much compelling evidence to the contrary).
Thanks all. The Calder Valley was really a bit of a stalking horse! Job wise I'm pretty flexible and I'll have to keep the existing one on for at least three months. Currently we are on the Western edge of Southampton - we really aren't town folk nd the New Forest doesn't cut it for the bike or much else, it's too flat! No kids to worry about just the dog. Cockermouth and environs pops up repeatedly as do some of the outskirts of the Leeds/Bradford/Huddersfield connurbations. Next step is a roadtrip....
Then I’d drive straight to Cockermouth and ignore the other bits.
rawtenstall & rossendale.... yeah. it's terrible here... you dont wanna move here!
I mean Big n Daft is right, there is the Bees Knees (i thought it was still "The Pub") which looks a bit rough... and there is the Tiger Lounge full of women of a certain age getting pissed on the all you can drink prosecco lunch on a saturday. And Boho likes to make up business adverts about it's rival bars are selling up. They totally overshadow the likes of Buffer Stops, Casked, Hop, Nothern Whisper, Jackson's...
and remember - Rossendale was considered as a location to film The League of Gentlemen but decided it was too desolate.
Brassic was filmed in Bacup tho
😉
Shropshire is epic. Lots of amazing countryside, lovely towns and villages and surprisingly good weather. If you pop just over the border, property in Wales is even cheaper… lots of possible places depending on how remote you want to be 🙂 the mountain biking is obviously pretty awesome.
The Midlands has not been mentioned much and I think you’re missing out if you ignore it.
As above, Shropshire is bloody lovely, and with care you’d find what you’re looking for at the right price bracket.
Worcestershire is also well worth looking at.
You can live in Calderdale without being in the Calder Valley. Look at places around Sowerby Bridge, Greetland etc.
Lots of nice villages on the edges of Halifax and Huddersfield but the house selection is odd at times. In the village centre the houses are tiny with no parking and small/no gardens. You'll need to be on the edge of the village of you want a garden, garage, parking etc.
You could buy a parking space in Central London and a very nice camper van to park in it?
South Wales! Great technical riding here. Or if you want a cheap house in the countryside try Mid Wales, with loads of epic trad mtbing.
Brassic was filmed in Bacup tho
Is filmed, they were there the other week