To ask what it’s really like to live in the Peak District?

[Walkingwinnie]

Considering permanently relocating to Derbyshire this summer, looking at the village of Tideswell.

Currently live in Central London but now I can mostly work from home it’s an option to move up there. Husband super commutes but can fly from Manchester.

We don’t have any family ties to the area but we are both very outdoorsy and love walking. As it is we spend most of our weekends (pre-COVID) driving out of London to hike/cycle.

Moving there would also allow us to live mortgage free in our 30s and mean we could have a great lifestyle and also save for a very comfortable retirement.

Has anyone made the move? Loved it? Regretted it? It’s fairly low risk for us as we could always come back (no kids, no plans to have any) but I’m aware I may be romanticising the long winters and the culture shock of leaving London!

Also, possibly of relevance should anyone have any direct experience of this: I am not white and my husband is German so we would possibly stick out even more than other southerners! Although Tideswell seems like a friendly place.

I live on the edge of the Peak District nearer to Manchester. It's a beautiful area with lots to offer. However, be aware that some more remote and smaller places can be insular/parochial. I would try to spend some time in places that interest you and get a feel for them. If you want to be involved in village life, check out local Facebook pages to get a flavour and contact any clubs/societies, etc you may be interested in joining and ask if you can visit. Obviously, this would have to be post lockdown.

We live just off the A6 and usually from Spring to late Autumn there is lots of traffic due to day trippers and holidaymakers on Friday afternoons and at peak times over the weekend. By 6pm on Sundays the traffic has usually died down.

Is there a reason Tideswell in particular? There are much nicer villages IMO

Tideswell seems an odd choice.

It'll be colder and much wetter (I say that as someone who did a similar move!). You do have to factor in tourist traffic for journeys, particularly during the summer, BHs and weekends. I moved from a smaller city and found it very different - not in a good way at first, but I did get used to it and wouldnt move back now. I don't know Tidser as the local call it, but DH does and says it's nice.

I've often thought about it. We both love climbing and went there nearly ever weekend, but it's a 2.5 hour drive for us. I don't think it's realistic for our jobs though. Before we were married, my husband lived there briefly with his first wife. He was hoping to find work in Sheffield or Manchester but couldn't. He said it was quite lonely, but obviously he could chat to other climbers so he didn't really mind. He lived in Grindleford, the whole of the Hope valley section is very pretty. I think if I did want to make the move, it might be more convenient to go for a bigger town like Buxton. Still dead close to lovely walks. Or try central Hathersage, there are some quite nice flats if it's just the two of you.

Istand you must live within spitting distance of me. Agreed the A6 on a Friday afternoon is painful.

Each village has its own character and some are more welcoming than others. Affordable Housing is in really short supply so bringing London equity may not be welcomed by the people who will be sharing the village with you after the vendor has said thanks very much. In your circumstances I would keep that very quiet.

Transport is also really variable - some days the drive to the Airport will take less than an hour - others it can be 2 hours or longer. Trains are getting better, but there are plans afoot to reduce the non peak services on the Buxton to Manchester Line.

I second the try before you buy. Come up and have a look around - it is beautiful and the walking and cycling is amazing.

It's a lovely place to live, especially for anyone who likes hiking etc. But you need to be aware that the transport links are not great. Manchester airport is not far away but most of the journey is on single carriageway roads that get really busy at peak times and there's always a chance of getting stuck behind a tractor etc. Added to that the roads in the rural areas get pretty bad when it snows, which it does most winters. Even if you have a vehicle that can manage it it's pretty common for roads to be blocked with vehicles that get stuck etc. It has it's own micro climate to some extent- there's often heavy snow in the Peaks but nothing in Manchester etc.

If you'll be wfh you'll also want to check out the wifi service in the area you're looking at. Friends who live in some of the smaller villages have had real trouble with this during lockdown.

After lockdown could you perhaps try it out for a few months in a rental property to see how you go?

Providing there hasn't been very heavy rain*, the new A555 has made journeys to the airport much quicker and there's a bus, the 199, that links Buxton and other towns along the way with the airport. It operates 20 hours a day.

*The new road floods when there is heavy rain. It happens regularly, so much so there is a Facebook group called something like "Is the A555 flooded?"

I was wrong: it's called "Is the bypass open".

The last time it was closed for a few days there were lots of joke posts, offering the opportunity of a bypass cruise with Jane MacDonald to Manchester Airport

I used to live in a small village near Tideswell, and still have family living in the area.
Tideswell has pretty good facilities- a coop, butchers and bakers, and several pubs. It's not a touristy as say Eyam or Castleton, but that's better if you actually want to live there rather than just visit.
Lots of working people there, a pretty mixed community. And yes, it can be a bit parochial. Like many rural areas it's not exactly multi cultural- but people take you as they find you ime.

I would (when we are let out again) rent a holiday cottage in the village- you can find out a lot about a place by going into the shops or listening in the pub.

Thank you for all the responses, much appreciated.

Re: why Tideswell, we like the feel of it, seems like a good compromise between feeling “peak-districty” but not too touristy. Also better located for the airport than e.g. Bakewell (I know there’s not much in it but when you’re getting up at 4.30am every Monday to go to the airport, that 15 mins makes all the difference )

But, if anyone has suggestions for other villages I’d love to hear them!

I live near the peaks and have family who live near tideswell. The only thing with weather is that sometimes tideswell (and other villages) get cut off because of snow in winter. Which might be an issue if your husband needs to commute. I often drive into peaks to see family and often what is just a bit cold /inkling of snow here is suddenly unsafe to drive in out there and they often close the roads to Manchester.

I think it’s a lovely part of the country but I am quite biased

Can you afford Buxton? They have a train station which goes to Manchester so might be better for his commutes!

What Unescorted said about affordable housing!

I'm from the Highlands and don't know the Peak District specifically, but I expect there are similar problems. Pretty places attract rich 'incomers' (sorry to use that word but I don't know another) who price locals out of the market. In my area you can't rent privately because all rentals are holiday rentals as they make loads more money. You can't buy small houses at prices which locals can afford, because rich people from outwith the area come in and buy them either as second homes or to work from home.

The issue is that often in rural areas the available jobs pay poorly. So people who are from the area don't have the same purchasing power as people who have done the same jobs for more money in big cities. So locals are priced out of the market, cannot rent as there's nowhere, and are forced to leave their home area even if they don't want to.
I struggled to stay in my home area for fifteen years, and lived with my parents into my thirties, all the while watching people from other places move in and drive the house prices higher.

It's a free country, and you can definitely move to the Peak District if you want to! But you'll be continuing to earn your (relatively) good city wages whilst working from home, while your neighbours have lower paid local jobs. I just think you should be very sensitive to this. Be aware that there may be bad feeling and don't resent it. You may have bid on a house which several local people really wanted but couldn't afford, and as a result they're still living in substandard accommodation or they might have to leave altogether. Let people get used to you, don't parade your relative wealth, and hopefully they'll accept you in the end.

Of course the Peak District could be totally different to the Highlands, and in that case please accept my apologies!

The issue with winter weather is that all the minor routes become impassable and everyone diverts to the A6 meaning there's about ten times more traffic on the A6 heading towards Manchester and you can go literally nowhere for hours on end. That said, it happens a couple of times a year normally 🤞

Is the Bypass open (A555) Facebook page

Does he commute every Monday from 4:30am? I don’t think that’s practical in peaks in winter.

Nice villages:

Ashford in the water
Over haddon
Winster
Stanford in the Peak

Avoid eyam like the plague (see what I did there?!) Very anti-outsiders. A couple my parents know moved there from a nearby city and were bullied/chased out by the locals.

I'm a bit jealous. Would love to live in the peak district but can't afford the prices. Luckily I live close enough to spend a lot of time there

We lived in Hope for a few years.
Of the Hope Valley villages, Hathersage always fret like it had the greatest cultural diversity (although nothing like a big town or city). It’s a bit closer to Sheffield, and apparently has the highest density of doctors of anywhere in the UK. I have no idea if there is any truth in that fact, but it was a popular saying in the mid 2000s,

We're in one of the towns on the Manchester side (not the same as PP, at the bottom of Snake Pass)

Not as pretty as some of the villages but gives us the best of all worlds as we have trains to Manchester and great walks from the door or a short drive. since moving here I have met people from several other countries as its popular with uni staff.

I would find the villages stifling after London and you will get snowed in, even the bigger towns get cut off.

I'd never go back to the city, especially now we have DD

We have not long moved out of the peak district, it was where I always thought we would settle, but it didn't work out for us .

Pro's: It's beautiful, and a lot of the places have pretty good amenities for a rural area owing to the tourists. Compared to London prices are good.

Con's: Public transport is crap (I mean, for rural standards it's great, but if you actually want to rely on it for anything than forget it). It gets very very busy in peak tourist times which can make it difficult to actually get out and enjoy it properly...roads will be busy / parking full etc and thanks to the aforementioned patchy public transport it means that walks/outdoor activities might need to be very close to where you live. That gets boring surprisingly quickly! Winter is a bit grey (depends very heavily on where you live obviously), but if in a valley sometimes the cloud cover doesn't lift. You can get a bit cut off in winter if there's snow on the hills, which is fine if you've got nowhere to go, not so much if you need to get to Manchester or Sheffield. Then there's the usual con's of moving from a big city to a rural area, Tideswell has pretty good amenities, but obviously it's not London!

For us the main problem was social. For whatever reason, we just didn't fit in to the place we chose to move to. I don't massively mind that but in a village that can be quite hard, as you can't help but be reminded of that fact and feel very much an outsider. My DH was working from home and it meant he had almost no social interaction at all, it really got him down and had an impact on both of our confidence. Having said all that Tideswell might be a better bet as it's a bit bigger, and if you're an outdoor enthusiast you'll meet lots of people that way too and the fact it's slightly less touristy is a bonus too.

Tideswell is lovely. Nice places nearby like Buxton and Eyam and a bus to Sheffield (not sure how regular). Lovely cafes and pubs and it just has a really nice feel. We are zone 2 London but can definitely see the appeal of living in the peaks.

I like Tideswell, agree that it has a nice feel but not too touristy like Castleton, Bakewell etc. It's not a diverse area, you will stand out a bit for being non white but I don't think you'll be treated badly as such. Still a lot of people here who have lived in the same town for generations. We're a white couple who moved from Manchester and do get some people who are not friendly for it, but no real problem.

I'd definitely recommend renting for a bit though to get a feel for where you'd like to live. Buxton is a good shout for the train station, I'd also suggest Disley which is much closer to the airport and just outside of the peaks. It borders onto Lyme Park and has a train station too.

This is all so useful and exactly why I started this thread so thank you!

Weather has definitely been a concern when considering the move although I’d been thinking more about floods than snow - my husband could work from home in exceptional circumstances but not for particularly long periods at a time so it’s something we’d have to weigh up.