Derbyshire villages - any advice?

[Hillary17]

Me and my partner are looking at relocating to Derbyshire. Ideally something close to the Peak District with a village feel. Local shops, couple of pubs, good schools. Main issue at the moment is that I can’t drive and would need to commute into Derby or Sheffield for work. Any suggestion?

There are lots of lovely villages near Hope, Tideswell, Litton, Cresswell for example. Avoid Castleton unless you want to be overrun with tourists and avoid Stoney Middleton as it's right an a major lorry route with the village split by it. Eyam is pleasant but popular with tourists. Edensor is lovely but expect a lot of traffic for Chatsworth.

Hope Valley is the railway station, that's why I mentioned Hope.

The Hope Valley line runs between Sheffield and Manchester, with train stations at Grindeford, Hathersage, Bamford, Hope and Eyam (from memory). So look around there. It’s an hourly service I think, but was never that reliable when I used it to travel from Hope to Sheffield, but that was nearly 20 years ago.

What is your budget? Prices vary wildly across the county. You do need to beware of tourist areas, they can make somewhere that's lovely in winter unbearable in summer speaking from bitter experience

Riotingbananas is right. House prices in the Hope Valley are not for the faint hearted! We moved away when it came to actually buyingbahiuse.

My sister lived in Youlgreve. It's one of the most depressing places I've ever been. I'm very glad she's moved back to the lakes!

Youlgreave isn't a patch on the Lakes.

We’re planning on renting for the first year to get a feel for the area. Around £800 a month, preferably 3 bed but for the right place we’d spend more money. I’m not a big fan of new builds and there seems to be a lot of developments in some villages! We’ve actually looked at Ashbourne quite a lot which is lower down, but no train station so a bit of a nightmare commute!

Youlgreave on a sunny day can be lovely - some great walks from there. In the rain and the dark of winter it's very different.

Am sure we could come up with some suggestions between us OP, but an idea of what you like and how much you want to spend would be useful - buying in the National Park will come at a much greater cost than out of it.

Cross-post OP! Have you looked at the A6 corridor? There's a decent train service into Derby which starts at Matlock and goes via Duffield, Belper and Cromford. Some nice villages near those stations, not as beautiful as the National Park, but convenient.

We looked for the same (admittedly 15 years ago) and had the same restriction in that I don’t drive. We ended up in Dore as that’s both on the hope valley train line and has regular buses into town. primary and secondary school outstanding. Two pubs. You can walk into the peaks. Houses are pricey, but it was lovely there

Definitely sounds like you need to live near a station but as others have said the trains are a little unreliable - but buses are even more so and often go on very ‘scenic’ routes. I wonder if, given your lack of transport, it might be a good idea to start somewhere a bit closer to a big town, Dronfield is a small town with a lovely community and a few outlying villages if you wanted to go for a village rather than a town but only a short distance from Sheffield and Chesterfield and with a much more reliable train service, if you rented there for six months it might give you a chance to get a feel for the Peak villages and see what you really want. We started off looking for Peak Disctrict isolates villages but once we had viewed several houses we realised that we really needed to be somewhere a little more accessible.

Chinley. Train line to Sheffield. Excellent schools. Great pubs/restaurant. Lovely twa rooms. Affordable too.

Good call on Dronfield.

Well maybe look at Matlock area? We used to live in a village outside the Peak District nearer Alfreton. Quieter and less pricey, less 'ex-mining' than some parts of NE Derbys.

Check out bus/rail routes and do some google streetviewing, Derbys is a big county your area needs narrowing down some really. Afterall there will be certain streets in certain villages/towns that you wouldn't necessarily want. :)

Or Belper area - but that is now a biggish town.

We have family in Hathersage which seems to tick a few boxes

Maybe a good starting point would be to decide whether you want to work in/live near Derby or Sheffield - they are very different. That might help narrow down the search area a little.

Now Hathersage really ia gorgeous... it has an outdoor pool!

Hathersage is fabulous in many, many ways, but this does come at a very high price!!

When we lived in Hope, we knew the postman who covered Hathersage. He said that his round had the highest density of British Medical Journals in England ie: Hathersage is basically commuter belt for all the doctors from the big Sheffield hospitals!

.... a heated outdoor pool no less.

He said that his round had the highest density of British Medical Journals in England

I do wonder if this is something posties say as we once lived in a village famed for the very same thing

Lived on the edge of Wingerworth just outside of Chesterfield for many years commuting to Sheffield and weekly to London. I don't drive and our dream of Peak Park living was definitely restricted by this. Getting to the station can be a challenge because of the poor bus service in many areas so you are relying on taxis or a partner to take you to the station. I was fortunate and was part of a car share and without it I couldn't have managed.
If you are thinking Derby for work then you really need south of Chesterfield. Sheffield it's probably Dore and Totley or Dronfield. These are nice but expensive non Peak Park places but not really villages in the traditional sense. I lived in Baslow for a while which was beautiful and commuted by bus but it wasn't easy so we didn't buy there. Prices vary considerably throughout the park and the cities and when we purchased it was offers over the asking price and they meant it. I have no idea whether that still holds but then some popular properties were going for 25% above the asking price so it might be worth checking out the current position when you settle on a spot.

Good luck with your move, it's a great place.

You will be restricted hugely by the public transport available, unless you are fortunate enough to have flexible hours.

The Hope - Grindleford -Sheffield trains (as above) are unreliable, and hourly. The further "out" you get, the less chance of there being a bus you can catch on the days that the train doesn't show up.

Withour a car, can you work from home on the days that it snows and your village is impassable?

You also need to then factor in the travelling time once you reach the station in Sheffield/Derby and need to get to your place of work.

The suggestion of Dore is a good one, if you can afford it.

@Riotingbananas maybe it’s a postie Badge of honour.