Overrated places in the UK

[Fixitup2]

What are your over rated places in the U.K. that everyone else seems to love?

Mine is the Peak District which imo has mediocre scenery spoilt by too many roads and too many people. I hate it and only ever agree to go if there’s nowhere else and we need to stop somewhere that way.

I find Brighton grim. I don’t know what the fuss is about.

Newquay. It's just like any other seaside town, including the one I live in. I don't get it.

Brighton.

Brighton is the pits now, used to be fab though many years ago. Bournemouth pretty much like Brighton, but with sandy beaches, Cornwall, went once, wouldn’t return.

@SmidgenofaPigeon try the Hope Valley in the Peak District. I go walking there without a car.

But I will say, I love the IoW, even the crap bits. We are going to the IoW for a week at the end of summer, and I asked my DS what delights he would like us to schedule. As well as some regular genuinely delightful ones, he included "go to the top of Ryde and walk down". And it's just a very steep, tatty high street, with some interesting junk shops, a Doctor Why shop, and an excellent chippy about halfway down, but we both really enjoy it.

Can not believe 2 people have said Chester, its beautiful!!!! I love it!

Edinburgh last summer was fucking awesome. All the tartan tat shops were shut. There weren't any tourists (or anything to do). It was just beautiful and empty. You could actually cycle and walk everywhere - there's something really fun about pulling wheelies on the esplanade. The neds cottoned on and started doing doughnuts in souped up beamers before the police shut it all down.

Normal service will resume this summer, with its underwhelmingness. As you were.

Bath

@Hellocatshome

Edinburgh, I'm sure its lovely and I must be missing something.

Nah, I used to work for the Council. It's really poorly run, mainly for the benefit of tourists. It's too small for the amount of people who visit & they don't look after the public good spaces like they should, eg trashing Princes Street Gardens on a regular basis or letting the National Galleries encroach on the open spaces.

Devon - I hate it with the high hedges along most of the roads and it's desolate and bleak too.

I love many of the places mentioned here.

Cornwall, Devon, Bristol, Bath, Oxford, York, Cambridge, Edinburgh, the Cotswolds, Isle of Wight, London and rural Surrey are all lovely in their different ways (no doubt I've missed a few and there are some I haven't seen enough of to know). Obviously tourism means that most of us never see these places at their best.

I'm encouraged that so far there has been only one mention of my home town and that was positive!

There’s overrated to live in and over rated to holiday in.

@Elderflower14 You beat me to Southwold. Went there as I read too much Mumsnet. It is ok. The beer is nice. But it’s not amazing.

Lot of mentions of Cambridge. I went to Uni there and lived bang in the centre so I was probably part of the problem! As a day trip I’d have thought it was nice, to live I can totally get why not. Expensive and hard to get around.

York?! The city I like as a visitor. The area around is a dull. London - I’m a northerner who can’t even persuade my DP to go down there after spending 4 years living there but there is so much to do and see for visitors - again not so great to live there. And who said Liverpool?! shame on you! You need to visit again if it’s been a while. So much to see, fabulous waterfront. Now if you were talking about Manchester..... and yes yes yes to Altrincham! Honestly though, it’s often a frame of mind. I hold a grudge against Prague after a disastrous solo business trip there!

@Thatisnotwhatisaid

York.

Really!

I used to live in York and I think it's wonderful

@MyOctopusFeature

The truth is places become rated because people go there. You get lots of people there and it becomes 'over-rated'. And that's the nub of it.

Porthcurno tomorrow morning at 5 AM will be amazing. In second week of August, driving down the narrow lane to find the car park on the left chocked up and a queue to leave the road makes a flight to Portugal more tempting.

Point over. In the spirit of the thread my number 1 vote is.....

Sandbanks, Poole, Dorset. Find a peninsula by the sea, pour concrete on it, build some flats out of more concrete, stick loads of tall and wide plastic windows in, paint everything white, pretend its Monaco or Cannes, invite journos from The Telegraph to write about it from a donated beach hut. That's Sandbanks.

Sad Banks.

I live very near Sandbanks and you are quite right. It was so beautiful and refined not so long ago - now full of yucky nouveau riche footballers and other awful people. At least I have my memories!

Knutsford - overcrowded, polluted, drug-ridden suburb of Manchester. Full of empty shops and poor quality restaurants.

Newquay

Betws-y-coed. Probably nice enough as a place, however the people were horrible, the weather was awful so we went home early

I'd be interested to know what people expected when they visited Stonehenge. It's kind of obvious what you're getting. Over priced yes. But it's always just been a bunch of rocks.

Brighton.

On the other hand, Glasgow which has always had a reputation, is actually pretty cool. Loads of culture, some fantastic restaurants. Underhyped in my opinion.

Best way to do Oxford Street, London = Liberty, Selfridges and then cocktails in Le Fumoir in Claridge's. Heaven!

So many parts of London. (I live here!)

Camden Lock and Market
Oxford Street
Piccadilly Circus
In fact, much of the West End.
Tower Bridge
City Hall (because of the Mayor. It looks like a gonad anyway)
The South bank between Tower Bridge and Westminster Bridge. Pickpicket central!
The cable car (emirates airline but no-one calls it that)
Knightsbridge
Chelsea

Outside of London, the biggest let-down was Bath.

I adored York. I considered moving there.

I’m ridiculously under travelled in the U.K. because I was always travel sick when I was young so we couldn’t go very far. Then as a family we started going abroad for holidays in the sun and that’s what I still like. So for holidays I’d say the entire U.K. because of the weather

Bicester Village is the stuff of nightmares, Salcombe is overhyped and full of people from London relentlessly overhyping it and also Leeds Castle in Kent, pretty setting but ridiculously expensive and every event like Christmas, outdoor cinema etc we've been to has been completely rubbish.

‘Interesting to hear how many people dislike Cornwall. I love it, and I’m Australian so am fussy about beaches.’

Lol! Being Australian doesn’t make you the authority on beaches at all. DH is Australian but he would never say that. I have Aussie relatives who live far inland and never go to the beach. Personally I think Wales has better beaches than Cornwall.

That’s interesting, I would never have compared Brighton and Bournemouth as similar places, different vibes.

Brighton - grim and threatening
Bath - don't understand why people are so keen to live there
Glastonbury - fake and an unpleasant vibe