Where is it?
Lancashire. Don’t look so shocked — there are some seriously smart bits in the county that gave us Bernard Manning, Blackpool Tower and jelly babies. And they don’t come much smarter than the Ribble Valley, near Preston; 225 square miles of rural delights between Pendle and the Forest of Bowland.
Convince me then
Just follow the science. Next slide please. The Office for National Statistics, no less, has awarded the Ribble Valley the accolade of healthiest place in England, rating favourably on measures including air pollution, household overcrowding, noise complaints, road safety and rough sleeping.
So far, so healthy. But would it make me feel good?
Yes, if you like stunning scenery — to the east the Ribble Valley is bordered by the brooding Pendle Hill. And there are the stone-built market towns (Clitheroe, the valley’s star location, and Longridge). There’s a gastropub and a deli in every village (or so it seems); a Michelin-starred restaurant in Langho — Lisa Goodwin-Allen’s Northcote; and, returning in July after a pandemic hiatus, the Clitheroe food and drink festival.
“There seems to have been a gentle drift away from the towns of Blackburn, Burnley and Preston, and from north Manchester,” says James Warburton, a 56-year-old company director who has two teenagers, Hugo, 15, and Aimee, 19, and lives two miles outside Clitheroe. “This drift has definitely accelerated in the past two years, driven by a combination of new housing developments and the pursuit of a better work/life balance.”
New blood then?
Indeed, says Jason Preston, head of sales at the local Fine & Country estate agency: “We have seen an increase in younger professional people, including from Cheshire and London, coming to the area with large deposits, good jobs or their own businesses, and they are taking advantage of the low interest rates. The split between local buyers and buyers from outside the area is now about 50:50.”
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Where do they want to live?
Close to Clitheroe. Preston says: “The surrounding villages of Whalley, Wiswell and Waddington are very popular and prices tend to be at a premium. The scenery is beautiful and the local schools are excellent.”
£750,000 is a “very accessible” price point, he adds, although the best rural houses with land are more than £1 million. Large new-build family homes cost between £750,000 and £1 million; semi-detached properties are in the region of £350,000; and two-bedroom flats are about £225,000.
First-time buyers, take note: despite the affluence there are decent terraced houses for less than £200,000, such as a three-bedroom end of terrace near the 12th-century Clitheroe Castle for £189,950 via Honeywell Estate Agents (rightmove.co.uk).
Is it accessible?
It depends on your precise location. From Clitheroe the M6 motorway is approximately 25 minutes away; it’s two hours, 15 minutes to Birmingham and one hour, 15 minutes to Windermere in the Lake District. Also from Clitheroe, you can drive to Preston in about half an hour, to Leeds in an hour and 15 minutes, and to Manchester and Liverpool airports in about an hour.
What’s the shopping like?
Clitheroe is renowned for its independent shops — such as Cowmans Famous Sausage Shop and D Byrne & Co, one of the leading wine merchants in the north — and its traditional market on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Clitheroe entered the supersonic era in 2019 when a four-screen Everyman cinema opened at the Holmes Mill complex.
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“There’s still a sense of timelessness to huge parts of the valley; a natural wilderness to explore,” Warburton says. “All the countryside you could ever wish for, untouched and unspoilt moorlands, meandering rivers, lots of working farms, lots of pretty villages and lots of country pubs too.”
Are the schools good?
Yes — they’re generally excellent. Outstanding-rated primary schools include Barrow URC, Chatburn Church of England, Clitheroe Pendle, and Langho and Billington St Leonard’s Church of England. The selective Clitheroe Royal Grammar School is also rated outstanding.
There are two Catholic co-ed independents: Oakhill School in Whalley and Stonyhurst College in Clitheroe, which is one of The Sunday Times Parent Power��s 20 best independent secondary schools in the northwest of England.
Don’t mention . . .
The trains. The Clitheroe-Rochdale service takes an age — about one hour, 35 minutes — to wend its way 34 miles across Lancashire, stopping everywhere (including the villages of Whalley and Langho). It pulls in at Manchester Victoria after an arduous hour and 15 minutes.
