Villages commutable to Manchester

[ritatherockfairy]

Possible relocation from SE to NW. Looking for suggestions of places to live that are reasonably rural, good schools, and commutable to Manchester (up to an hour from Piccadilly). Very early stages so I'm being deliberately vague and hoping the wisdom of mumsnet might uncover some hidden gems.

How far a commute do you want?
You may struggle with rural if you want a short commute.
To the south- cheadle, Wilmslow, bollington, bramhall, Didsbury, gatley, Hale, Bowden.
To the north- egerton, egdeworth, Irvington, horwich, Westhoughton, ramsbottom, villages around Chorley area (adlington, Euxton, Heath charnock)
Saddleworth is rural and lots of nice villages but I don’t know it very well.

Sorry read your commute info! Pretty sure all of those are within an hour but some of the north manchester ones will be into Victoria so you may need to change at Salford crescent to get to Piccadilly.
Private or state schools? Primary or secondary?
Hale, altrincham, sale etc have selective state grammars that are all rated as very good.
Bolton area has an excellent private school - Bolton school.
Manchester central- Manchester girls school, manchester grammar and withington girls. All selective private schools.
Each area will have good and not so good state primaries. Westhoughton has an excellent selection of state primaries. Many are faith ones though so quite a tough admissions policy.

Thanks Jemimapuddleduk - that's really useful. I've been looking mainly to the South, including Derbyshire, but the school thing is really stressing me. My DC would be moving from state secondary and although very academic I'm not sure we want to go the selective route.

I don’t have much knowledge of Derbyshire except there are some beautiful places out that way. Hopefully someone else will pop on and offer more advice. X

Bollington?

Rossendale, just north of Bury has a grammar school and an outstanding secondary school in Haslingden. It's a good compromise between rural countryside and being down the road from Manchester. I'm not sure what the commuting is like though.

Areas of Cheshire are only an hour by train from Frodsham - so Frodsham/Helsby/Alvanley/Manley all within a few minutes of the station

Have a look at the Saddleworth area about 30 minutes in the car or 40 minutes by train

By train or car?

If you like Derbyshire, Buxton is lovely and doable by train.

Rossendale, just north of Bury has a grammar school and an outstanding secondary school in Haslingden. It's a good compromise between rural countryside and being down the road from Manchester. I'm not sure what the commuting is like though

I'm familiar with the Rossendale valley too and it's a bit of an undiscovered gem in my opinion, well parts of it anyway.

Crawshawbooth is lovely and villagey and you'd get a decent property fairly cheaply.

@MaJoady

I agree Buxton is lovely, but having lived there and commuted to Manchester by train for a few years I would advise anyone considering it to think carefully. The trains are very old and take a slow route so the commute is often over an hour each way (not including travel to and from the station at either end) and they often use trains with no tables and very little room so working on the train is almost impossible (I'm told they are carriages that were modelled on buses). When I did it, the trains were usually freezing in winter and hot in summer as well as being prone to mechanical problems etc. They are also not very frequent (about 1 per hour)- even less so after peak time. I had to be in Manchester every day and found that from door to door it was not unusual for me to spend about 4 hours travelling each day. A slight delay in leaving the office would mean an extra hour on top of this if I had to wait for the next train.
Driving that route is not a good option either unless you go very early in the morning or very late at night.
On top of this, house prices are quite high (for the county) and a lot of the lovely big old houses have next to no garden. I have quite a few friends who relocated from the SE who were surprised by this.
If you are considering anywhere in Derbyshire I'd suggest trying the commute route on a week day before you make a final decision.

Thanks everyone. This is really helpful. I grew up in the NW so my memories of places like Chorley/Rossendale date back to the 1980s. I'd be commuting by public transport ideally.

Thanks Hillyweather. I had wondered about that. Presumably it's also crawling with visitors at the right time of year.

A little closer to Manchester than Buxton, there's Whaley Bridge and Furness Vale which both have trains under 1 hour to MP. Marple/Marple Bridge has frequent trains under 1 hour. Assume they're all Northern Rail. I have colleagues who commute from Marple and Furness Vale so easily doable. Can't comment on schools though I'm afraid.

Rossendale, just north of Bury has a grammar school and an outstanding secondary school in Haslingden. It's a good compromise between rural countryside and being down the road from Manchester. I'm not sure what the commuting is like though

I grew up in Rossendale, the commute to Manchester is okish depending on the time of day

Takes an hour ish on the bus from Rawtenstall Centre to Piccadily, longer if traffic is bad. Takes about 35/40 minutes in the car

I live in between Bolton & Manchester now, near Walkden. Takes about half an hour to get to Bolton & about 40/45 minutes to get to Piccadily

@ritatherockfairy
Yes, there are rather a lot of tourists in the Summer, but to be honest I don't find that a problem. It's not to the extreme I've seen in Cornwall etc where it makes the traffic awful and there are a lot of events etc in the town that we wouldn't have without them, which make it a nicer place to be.
If you're commuting by public transport the main issue you would have is the poor trains as I said before. Plus finding housing in easy reach of the train station that fits your needs and budget. There are lovely rural villages outside the town , but public transport there is pretty much non existant

Marple is supposed to be very nice.

I'm surprised that nobody has suggested Poynton

As PP have said, south Manchester/Trafford areas are lovely. They do have the grammar system but there are excellent non-selective schools also. Sale, Altrincham, Hale, didsbury, Chorlton all nice but not cheap! Sale probably cheapest. Timperley is on the tram line, cheaper than Altrincham but still in catchment for good schools. (Also worth noting different grammars have different feels even though they’re all selective - single sex vs mixed, arts/sports provision etc, approach to supporting achievement)

I live in glossop, it’s just under an hour door to door to my office in central Manchester. Trains generally okay and we have newer northern trains than other Northern lines. It’s a town but in the countryside. Two decent state schools in the town. It’s on the edge of the Peak District.

We previously lived in Stockport - some areas are lovely but choose carefully. V quick to Manchester though by train. Bramhall, Cheadle, Hazel Grove and the Heatons are meant to be nice.

Colleagues in my team commute from wilmslow, hebden bridge (a trek in my opinion but it’s a beautiful place), Stretford, Stockport & north Manchester.

@Ishotmrburns Poynton is lovely but a pain to drive through. I’m not sure how good public transport is there either?

Macclesfield is also a potential option, it’s about 20 mins on the fast train to Manchester.

The difficulty is that an hour into Piccadilly gives you masses of choice, and you need to narrow it down somewhat. Also, bear in mind that anywhere that says it is within 60 mins of Manchester in a car will be at least double that in rush hour. The road system into Manchester from pretty much every direction is almost gridlocked. I live about 9 miles out of Manchester city centre and I'd allow 2 hours to get into town in a morning if I was driving, slightly less for coming out of time after about 4pm.

Therefore, the tram in and around Manchester is brilliant - yes it gets very busy and its expensive but it is reliable (mostly every 6 mins or less) so have a look if anywhere close to the tram would suit your wish list. Places like Sale, Timperley, Altrincham, Hale, Bowdon (all south Manchester and on / close to the tram) are quite urban although have good access to places like Dunham & have outstanding schools.

I think Manchester and it's surrounds are the same as anywhere - the popular, "naice" areas with outstanding schools are the most expensive. Generally speaking, South Manchester is more expensive than North Manchester.

Look East - Gee cross; Mossley

Buxworth - easy to get the train from Whalley bridge
The drive would be hideous

Ramsbottom is lovely and Tottington is really nice. You can get into Bury easily from both, and then catch the tram to Piccadilly. Bury (where I live) has great areas too!

Heaton Moor?

Train into town is about 12-15 mins ish. Lovely and leafy.

Depends how much you want to spend really. What's your budget like?