A nice place to live? Does anyone live there and work in manchester, if so, what is the commute like? Just throwing some potntial ideas around at the moment.

Nice place to live. I really , really like it.

Best to not mention the commuting. Words like ‘hell’ & ‘gridlock’ will appear in relation to commuting by car to Manchester. However, it’s 35 minutes on the train to Picadilly.

We looked at moving to Glossop some years back. One of the main reasons we dismissed it was the busy main road running right through the middle of it. Locals will correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that has only got worse. The main route into Manchester can get extremely busy, but of course there are trains.

The surrounding area is beautiful, with lots of big hills to explore. All the well known and ridden trails of Derwent Valley are just up and over the Snake Pass and there’s plenty of top mountain biking around Rowarth/Hayfield/Chinley/Kinder which is a short (uphill) ride away.

As a road rider I don’t think it’s well served with that many options for quiet country lane rides compared to other locations, but I am spoilt where I live 🙂

Would I live there? If I had a job in Manchester and could commute by train then I’d consider it.

Anyway, let me move over and let some proper locals have their say

Places like Glossop often get a rather cynical review as do other towns in the High Peak like New Mills, Whalley Bridge and Chapel en le Frith and so on. I like them all.

Traffic aside I think they are all great places to live for families. Solid gritstone architecture and access to sensational countryside. Depends obviously on your circumstances.

Glossop has usual spread of decent restaurants, pubs etc If you can afford Hayfield/Padfield nearby then I would check them out too but it can be a bit more parochial.

I’d avoid and look somewhere else if you are after for a more active transient social life. Its a place to put down roots and get involved with the community.

You’ll never be short of pegs

been out for a few nights there, some of the locals are errr.. interesting.

Search the forum, long thread on this a few months back. A57 is very busy, but decent people, decent range of properties, getting a bit more gentrified, surrounded by great riding on and off road. I’d live there without a concern (don’t live there but have spent several years involved in housing all around Derbyshire)

We considered it a while back, but the rush hour traffic is really bad. No problem if you work from home/Glossop.

We chose Saddleworth, it’s fantastic, but sssshhhh don’t let anyone know!

nice bakery but thats it

Traffic is ALWAYS terrible

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/outskirts-of-manchester

You wouldn’t want to drive into Manchester or anywhere else on that side, but it’s fine getting out into the Peak and across to Chesterfield and the M1. Train is 35 minutes into town. Theres’ plenty of back lane riding if you know where to go and you can be on top of Holme Moss in 50 minutes from the centre of town. The mountain biking is ace. It has the major advantage of being somewhere Binners would never live.

Seriously, it’s a nice place. Not pretentious or snobby – probably about 50/50 local people and those who’ve moved from elsewhere. Shopping, restaurants, pubs are all on the up – there’s a brilliant Thai noodle place on the High Street, an M&S Simply Food, good bike shop in the centre of town etc.

There are lots of two-up, two-down stone built terraces, but if you want bigger houses, they tend to be modern stuff.

I like being able to look up and see big hills on three sides, but I appreciate that most people on here aren’t actually mountain bikers, so that probably won’t count for much. 🙂

nice bakery but thats it

Traffic is ALWAYS terrible

Which bakery btw? Oh, and the traffic is terrible, but it keeps house prices sane and has the bonus of keeping car commuters out of the place.

There is a new bakery ‘One 17 bakers’. I wouldn’t say it was brilliant though, just o.k.

Good park for the children,
good assortment of local shops,
friendly place,
Great countryside.

There is a new bakery ‘One 17 bakers’. I wouldn’t say it was brilliant though, just o.k.

Yeah, I felt I’d missed something. The bakery in Old Glossop isn’t bad in a low key sort of way. Whereabouts is it? I tend to make my own bread, but every so often I get all decadent and buy stuff…

It rains a lot.
Always much drier/brighter on the Sheffield side of Snake, but then I’m a grumpy Yorkshireman in exile…

We were doing a similar search earlier in the year and, whilst liking Glossop town centre far more than we expected to, were put off by the traffic.

We settled on Whaley Bridge – love it. It’s backward, in a nice way 🙂

Whaley would get my vote, great feel and great bike shop, or Chinley. Chapel is OK, New Mills is not as bad as it was 6-7 years ago. And it is home to the Swizzels sweet factory!

Cheers for the info. My girlfriend is from audenshaw so we are up there quite a lot. We regularly go up to tintwhistle, Binn green, crowden etc and I really like it. Went out in glossop on Sunday night – had a meal in the wheatsheaf then a pint in the star and wetherspoons. I must say I was impressed by the wetherspoons! Glossop just felt like a good place to live and had a good feel. Right on the peaks doorstep with Manc half an hour away seems like the best of both worlds.

I live in Pembs at the moment but it feels time to move on and the north is calling.

Have you considered Macclesfield area? It ticks all the boxes that the other places mentioned do plus you get a bit more with it being a hub.

As others have said the traffic is a problem. The A628 is chocca from Tintwistle down the M67 every morning and afternoon, which has a knock on effect going into Glossop. If you’ve only been up there at the weekend you probably don’t realise how bad it can get.
I’d be looking at the Greenfield, Uppermill, Diggle area if I wanted to live that side of the hill.

Platts bakery used to be a good un,not sure if its still going.
I like Glossop and it seems to be on the up with the new stores moving into town and the general improvement to the high st.

Lots of good restaurants,Kwei ping for Chinese,Ruchi for a Indian and a variety of others including Italian and Sri Lankan food.

Yes it can be hell going towards Mcr by car but there are a few back routes available to miss out Mottram Moor(A57)and if you going towards Marple/Disley/Chapel/Buxton,Sheffield/Huddersfield then traffic is not really a issue.

Good riding right on your doorstep although Glossop has its own microclimate!
And your not considered a local to you have lived there 25yrs+

Whereabouts is it?

BWD – just past the Wren’s Nest car park,going towards Old Glossop, first pelican crossing you come to and it’s on the other side of the road (used to be Alice Rose cakes and cookies).
The husband is a fully trained artisan bakery type person, wife is an American.

I used to live near there, although it was a while ago. The riding from the door wasn’t that great really. Places like Marple or New Mills seemed better.

I’ve lived in New Mills for 6 years now after moving from Withington still love it here – under 30 mins train journey into Manchester and also a decent mostly off road ride in too.

The riding from the door wasn’t that great really.

Thanks Moley, you proper made my day with that one. You’re right in the sense that Doctor’s Gate is a bit lacking in flow, but you clearly didn’t look very hard if that’s what you think generally. Maybe new hills and trails appeared after you moved away? Did you ever notice the Peak District for example? There’s some okay riding there I’ve heard. I view the trails around Marple as an acceptable foul weather alternative.

Honestly, you can slag Glossop off for having awful traffic and not being some über cool northern Hampstead clone wannabe, but the local riding is great. If you can’t be arsed with the local sneaky stuff, you can always put in ten minutes on the road and you’re on Middle Moor and round the base of Kinder.

The road riding’s genuinely decent too. Plenty of back lane alternatives to the bigger roads if you want, masses of climbing, big 100 mile epics from the front door. Tour de France goes over one of our local hills next year.

You prefer the riding from Marple? Hahaha… are you scared of hills or what? The internet: easy access to the hard of thinking.

Oh, and thanks for the bakery heads up – I shall go and investigate tomorrow. I am definitely not local btw 😉

I noticed the Peak District of course, but without a car the bridleways were a long way away. There were lots of footpaths by my door though, I wasn’t into cheeky at the time. I remember studying the map and looking for routes that I could ride without footpaths that would only take two hours, and I came up short. I had plenty of experience at picking rides back then, but not up North, so maybe local knowledge and tricks and tips would’ve been handy. I ony had a map remember.

The internet: easy access to the hard of thinking.

Honestly – **** off with insults like that. Seriously. That’s just plain nasty.

You’re trolling mate. You come on here pretending that there’s no decent riding on the edge of the Peak District National Park and then you’re offended when someone calls you on it? Come on, get real. You can’t take the mick like that and then get all offended when someone points out the obvious.

People on this thread – bar Binners – are trying to be helpful, but you can’t stop yourself posting garbage about the riding being ‘not that great really’. Did you really not notice that there’s excellent riding around ten minutes away – you just ride up Chunal. Or was that not obvious on your map?

I still think you’re a troll. If you’re not, then I apologise. Give me a shout if you’re ever up this way and I’ll show you what you missed including a cracking two-hour ride from the front door that’s mostly legal.

I’m not trolling. I just said that when I lived there I didn’t find any decent riding from the door, despite being on the edge of the Peaks. That’s truly what I found.

If you think that’s trolling you’ve got a different definition to me.

My map incidentally was an OS map and it didn’t show many bridleways, and on the occasions I went to follow some of the permissive paths I ended up clambering over mountains of peat. There was a trail on the hill opposite my house but it didn’t go anywhere.

This was over 15 years ago, and trails are far more developed than they used to be now, generally, but I dunno if that’s had an effect.

Okay, so you genuinely managed not to find any good riding. I’m somewhat bemused by that, which is why I thought you were trolling . I think it’s fair to say that you probably overlooked some very nice trails, which is a shame. Where did you live by the way?

All I’ll add is that Glossop also has an excellent award-winning local butcher in the form of Mettricks, which no-one has mentioned yet specifically, but produces ace sausages, though they have little impact on the evils of road congestion.

As far as that goes, I guess there are two facets to it: one is that it’s a bitch to get in towards Manchester during peak times and the other is that the High Street is also the A57 aka the Snake Pass, so while it’s not a dual carriageway trunk road, it can get busy on summer weekends. It would be more pleasant were it a pedestrianised, cobbled precinct and it does mean the town centre feels a bit ‘roadie’. Blah… etc and indeed, blah.

In summary: nice trail riding, which Molgrips couldn’t find. Nice road riding. Good train link to Manchester. Awful road links to Manchester. Peak District National Park starts on the edge of town. Decent spread of shops, pubs and restaurants, all seem to be on the up. No proper cinema, opera house, ballet, theatre. Several gyms and a swimming pool. Generally friendly but occasionally grumpy people. Slightly grim weather thanks to be ing in the rain shadow of the Pennines, but when it’s good, the place is beautiful, not twee and touristy, brilliant Thai noodles.

Some rubbish riding about ten minutes away…

Commute to Manchester from Glossop?

At weekends (and occassional evening rides in Summer) I’ll go back/forth that way. Its M.E.N.T.A.L in anything like rush hour due to that lovely bottle neck as you get within 1-2miles of the motorway and vice versa back to Glossop.

No ta.

How many times a week will you ride in the Peaks? Say 3?

How many times a week will you commute into Manchester compared? 10.

It takes me 45mins to get from St Retford, Manchester to Ladybower on a sleepy early Sat am.

I bet commuting from Glossop its 1.30hrs each way.

Show me a map link BWD?

I bet commuting from Glossop its 1.30hrs each way.

It’s a good job you pointed that out as no-one else has mentioned the traffic. Or the alternative of a 35-minute train journey… 🙄

There are a load of great trails around Glossop that don’t require a car to get to. To the south you’ve got Rowarth, Hayfield, Kinder, Chinley Churn etc and all within a short road ride up Chunal Hill (locals may know a more pleasant route to avoid this main road). I don’t know the north side so well but there are trails around the reservoirs for an quick(ish) and easy burn. All of these are legal and have existed since long before mountain bikes were even a twinkle in the eyes of the klunkerz. How much you can do in 2 hours is as much a question of fitness I suppose. If you’re the kind of rider who enjoys a quick hour at lunch time then perhaps Glossop is left wanting.

Oh, and thanks for the bakery heads up – I shall go and investigate tomorrow. I am definitely not local btw

The lady is called Jane. Mention to her that I told you about the shop (she knows me as Jane, the ‘bunting lady’. Don’t be embarrassed to say bunting :wink:)

You seriously expect me to walk into a shop and say that I’ve been referred by ‘Jane the bunting lady’? Are you on commission 😉

Yep.
It’s my gorgeous bunting hanging outside the shop 🙂

Their bread isn’t the best I’ve had but the cinnamon swirl was yummy.

Edit; Yep to walking into the shop and saying bunting, not on commission. It’s a sore point, will tell you tomorrow the full sorry, sad tale.