Artsy liberal places to live in the U.K.? (But still beautiful)

[Newspaper6]

We live in London but our work is going wfh pretty much completely. We both wfh part time, but now it looks like it’ll be permanently that way, with maybe one meeting a week in London.

DH and I like living in London, but open to moving and our young DS does not like living in london. Whenever we go to the countryside for the day he says “can we move here?!”. So now we’re thinking maybe we’ll try out living somewhere else.

We are from London so actually don’t know much of the UK!

Can anyone suggest a liberal, artsy place to live that is beautiful and has a great community? The thing I like best about london is how easy it is to find a very friendly community.

No idea where to start!!!

Our family is London or SE, friends London or SE / SW so somewhere easy to get back to for that.

Any suggestions welcome! And we will start taking day trips!

area never seen that before!

I echo what many have said about Stroud. The five valleys are gorgeous. It's hard to find a house in Stroud without a view. It is liberal and arty and down to earth. It is quiet. The train links to London and Gloucester are good, to Bristol and the SW, not.
I love love love it here. It is green, quiet, real. People are friendly. It has a great lido. We have the commons, woods and canal.
I miss the sea.
I came from Bristol, and Stroud is not comparable if you are looking for diversity, a music scene or decent takeaways.
But you can't have everything.
You also have a grammar school system here.

Bristol

How much money have you got OP? I am in love with this house (if only I had £1m)!
www.knightfrank.co.uk/properties/residential/for-sale/bridge-road-ebley-stroud-gloucestershire-gl5/CIR200016

@Poetryinaction

Thats an instagram house if ever I saw one! I can imagine the owners posting tasteful elegant shots of them eating avocado on toast in their elegant kitchen and posting on insta!

Ha ha! It's beautiful! And massive!

Its gorgeous. sigh

West/South West of Sheffield is nice, liberal and full of people who have moved up from London! It's also very near to the beautiful Peak District.

Whitstable! I’m surprised it’s only come up once so far.

I suggest you rent a house for the first year. It's so different than what you are used to you might want to try it out first before you invest heavily and discover you actually need something more or less rural.

Depends what you mean by artsy.

I loved socialising in Totnes but made sure I never mentioned I worked in healthcare or believed in vaccinations But lots of arts, dance etc.

Also it is miles away from anywhere else and I used to have a holiday in London each year to go to the theatre.

While you could pick somewhere like Cambridge which has theatre, museums, student and university life to tap into. And not so far from London if you want to get back to the city.

The Stroud house - hmm but surrounded for a house of that size. I’d def want more land.
More crucially I wouldn’t touch it due to flooding realities and risks right there - unless somehow this Stroud property by canal escaped so many went through last winter ?

Whitstable?

Wow that house, poetry! It’s amazing!

I think the suggestions of renting for a year are really good I hadn’t thought about it! It’s hard to even know where the right streets are before you move somewhere I think?

Looking at Rightmove school checkers, Bath seems to be either independent schools or faith schools (!) - is this generally the case or am I looking at the wrong bit?

Stroud sounds really interesting - as do all these areas! Taking our first day trip next weekend, going to check out the Bath / Somerset areas! Making lists!

Good points Heron. If I were to offer on my fantasy house I would definitely look into those issues (the land is not an issue for me as there is enough, and you are close to town which is preferable for me).
I dream.

How exciting Newspaper!

A little over invested now! That house has 2 self contained flats and a self contained house, bringing in a rental of over £2000 if you wanted or needed to. Property is actually quite cheap in this part of Stroud.

If you are working from home - somewhere with good broadband and mobile connections are a must.

Bath has state schools. E.g. Ralph Allen, Oldfield girls, Hayesfield, Norton Hill Wellsway, are in Bath/ surroundings.

Sorry, I guess you meant primary. Not sure about those

I would echo pp in being a little careful of Stroud due to the grammar school issue - bearing in mind that, as many people commute many miles for the grammars, the percentage of children getting in from the local area is small.

If selecting an area, I would very much base yourself somewhere where the non-grammar [not comprehensive, as it lacks the most able] option is as good as it possibly can be, and then decide whether you want to enter into the coaching frenzy in year 5 for the 11+.

Cheltenham is an option with a higher proportion of better non-grammars (only having a singe grammar for a much larger population means the grammar effect is smaller), though tight catchments are an issue.

Brighton is the first I think of, followed by Bristol

Frome

Bristol definitely.
I loved Brighton as a student, but not sure I'd locate there now.

some weather shockers here - not because the places are 'oop north' but because of local geography. Don't get so caught up in the art that you forget the science.