Best small village in England
 

Hello everyone,
We are searching for the best village to stay in England. By village we mean small country houses, an old pub, and some place not very touristy. We want to be able to walk around the village as we won't have/rent a car.

Being near a bus or train station would be great so we can visit other towns.

A village that is north of London would probably be best as we hope to travel to Scotland at some point. (Maybe around half way or less to Scotland)

A village that is near an old castle would be wonderful.

We have done a lot of research and can't decide on a place to visit. We will be renting a home while we are there.

Any airbnd or other stay recommendations? A village with rentals would be wonderful if you know any.
Thanks for all the help!

Silly site froze up on me mid-post . . . :(

Since there are (literally) hundreds of possibilities . . . in your research have any places particularly piqued your interest?

Would you settle for a small town/large village? There aren't all that many small villages with either good bus service or a train station.

OH -- and how long would you (or from your earlier thread . . . Your parents) be staying in the village?

And is this besides the best towns that you asked about here? https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...1704670/page2/

Hello again,
You are definitely right about the hundreds of possibilities. Castle Combe is one such area that has piqued our interest but we are still searching. Thought we would repost with a few updates to the search. It's also great reading others peoples experiences.
Thank you for the responses.

What do you think goes on in small "not very touristy" villages? What goes on in small non-touristy villages in the US? I think you will be very, very bored, always assuming you find one with somewhere to stay, especially without a car. And if you pick a place with a station on the main line from London to Scotland it likely won't be small.

I grew up in a smallish town with a station in commuting distance from London, and believe me, there was (and is) nothing of interest to foreign visitors, and a village would be worse unless it was touristy - in the Cotswolds or Cornwall, for instance.

There are two places I’d recommend due to their Britishness, charm and transportation opportunities.
1) Norwich: lovely town that offers everything you ask for and more
2) York: lovely historical Northern town

Ditto^^^

I made close to the same comment on the OP's original thread. "OK put on a different hat . . . If a visitor from the UK was visiting the USA for the very first time -- would you recommend they stay three weeks in your Parent's small town? Unless it is a pretty special place, probably not. . . . "

Both are great . . . but neither is anything like a small village - FAR from it. York's population is close to 160,000 (just inside the city boundaries) and Norwich is about 150,000.

I agree both aren’t small villages but are great hubs to get to small villages while enjoying some stellar British history, architecture and life.

No question -- I agree they would be great bases -- especially York - just so much on offer. But the OP has over two lengthy threads maintained they want a 'village'. I do think there may be a misunderstanding what staying in a 'village' entails.

Village with pub and shop is tricky. Small town possibly. I have a few
Masham in North Yorkshire
Stamford in Rutland
Stromness in Orkney Blandford in Dorset
Liskard in Cornwall

AFAIK only two of those have rail service. (Stamford which is bigger than a village, and Liskeard). What they want is a unicorn.

Perhaps prioritise their unicorn, so pub, then must be smaller than 1500 people etc

loved Stamford and could imagine that would tick many boxes.
Don’t know Liskeard.

MrStanford - We have done house and pet sitting projects in many places around the UK and my advice would be to forget about the small village thing. There are a few I could think of but most people would be bored to tears after anything more than a few days! There are some lovely villages around Henley on Thames or Marlow, many of which feature regularly in TV programmes like Vicar of Dibley, Midsommer Murders , Endeavour etc. because they are so picturesque and unspoiled . Places Like Turville and Hambleden spring to mind. However, I think most people would be happier actually staying in small riverside towns like Marlow and Henley etc.which have as many pubs, restaurant as you could possible want.

Winchcombe in the Cotswolds would be a good option. Many Cotswolds footpaths converge there so great walking . Lots of pubs. Sudeley Castle home to Henry VIII last wife is there. We even stayed in the castle cottages there which I think are still available to rent. Close to Cheltenham and a lot of small, if touristy villages in the Cotswolds.

Stamford as mentioned above is another small town but there are other smaller and even quainter options, close by like Uppingham and Oakam. Lots of lovely small villages near those towns too but when we stay in these villages we are usually in very nice house but really grateful to have the dogs to walk otherwise there would not be a lot to do.

In addition to airbnb, maybe take a look at some of the house sitting websites. We are currently inundated with requests to look after peoples home and pets and increasingly, we are finding that in many cases there are no pets, people just want their homes occupied when away. Currently we are turning down 2 or 3 requests a day because we are booked.

Re finding somewhere "halfway to Scotland" . I would really worry too much about that as it will likely to be a lot easier to head straight to Scotland from London by train or plane. (OK there may not be many trains running I the UK this summer so renting a car may be the only option!)

Let's lift your eyes up the map a little to the small towns of Clitheroe in Lancashire, or the slightly larger (but still small) town of Skipton in North Yorkshire. Both have castles, Skipton's is bigger and in better shape, restaurants and lovely shopping in both. Both have rail links to get up to Scotland and are surrounded by wonderful countryside. You could get to the Lancashire coast or the Lake District from Clitheroe, or up to Harrogate or York from Skipton

I think this is in the same category as wanting to "live like a local". You know what locals do? They get up early, fix breakfast, see the kids off to school, go to work, come home, fix dinner, watch TV/see friends/go to the pub for a couple of drinks and go to bed. Exciting, no?

Places become touristy for a reason - there are things for tourists to see and do.

I checked my home town, referenced above, on AirBnB. The one and only listing is for a hotel.

I am still wondering what the parents, referenced on the OP's other thread as the reason for this trip, actually want to see/do in the UK. Just because they are in their 60s doesn't mean they have to be protected from the big city.

Some suggestions are not going to meet your location requirements.
You are going to find it hard to meat some requirements. A small town is going to hit those more than any village.
I will suggest Kendal.
Has a great number of accommodation.
Many pubs and places for tea and eats.
On the way to Scotland.
Has national bus an train connections. Oxenholme is the nearest train station
Local bus services can get you to countryside and other historical sites Like Wordsworth's Grasmere.
Lastly it has that important castle.
Look at visit-kendal website for more information

Kendal, being in the Lake District, will be overrun with visitors during August and probably much of September, which is when these people will be traveling according to the OP's other thread.

Based on the photos, Kendal's castle is a small ruin, no one would go to Kendal for that.

Kendal has a train station, but you would need to take a train to Oxenholme for the main line to Scotland.

Everywhere will be busy in August.
There are a lot of castles in England that are ruins. Like Corfe Castle, Dunstanburgh Castle, or Tintagel Castle (to name a few) which are classics for a tourist visit. Why so negative about Kendal Castle?

welcome to Fodors

I suggest don't take any comments on the European site personally, we all have a view and they are all valuable to an OP. "Wisdom of the crowd"

Because it looks so small. Sure, plenty of castles are ruined, but somewhere like Conwy or Caernarfon is big enough to still be interesting. A first time visitor should not be directed to Kendal because of its castle if castles are one of their primary interests.

I have been to Kendal, and stayed nearby for several days, but I did not bother to visit the castle.

I think this is Important information omitted from this thread but emphasized in the earlier thread . . . This is a surprise trip for the 60 something parents of the OP celebrating their 40th anniversary. I sure wouldn't want to stick my apparently 'non-travel savvy' parents (never been on an airplane) in some back water village or even small town miles from the famous sites they may actually want to visit.

I honestly think the whole idea makes no sense -- IMO they need to be in a place with lots of easy transport options. Lots of places to eat. Lots of sites to fill their days. Parks and gardens. Walkability. According to the OP the parents have always dreamed of traveling to England so my guess they already have a wish list. One thing for sure -- I don't think this should be a surprise trip. The parents should pick the location(s) and do what they want to do.

I do believe the OP may have a skewed idea of daily life in a bucolic English village.

In other words, they probably need to be in London, and then Oxford or Cambridge, Bath and/or York. But they should be consulted. This is like birthday presents. In my family we wrote lists, so whatever you got was something you actually wanted. I just cleared out a cupboard of stuff that will go to Goodwill/equivalent and it was all items I had been given by friends.

A good number of English villages has no pub, no shop, no bus service or school. They are basically dormitories.
Anywhere vaguely touristy/popular is also full of second homes so even emptier of life.
They are not like the villages in Midsomer Murders or whatever.
I have family stuck in what were once thriving villages and who are now cut off from anything without a car.

Please talk to your parents about this trip. It is still a surprise for them, but one which they can enjoy more by having some input into it.
Don't leave them stuck in some "idyllic" rural desert.
You never know they may actually want to spend their time in London with the occasional day trip.

If I were planning this trip, for 60-ish newbies, there would be at least a week in central London, with a day trip to Windsor, and possibly Kew and/or Greenwich. Maybe even longer in London, with a day trip to Canterbury, Dover and/or Brighton. Maybe even Ryde. Then at least three days/four nights in Cambridge, with a day trip to Ely and probably Evensong in King's College chapel (religious (dis)belief irrelevant). Up to York, and then Durham, with a side trip to Hadrian's Wall. Then Edinburgh. Can be done in either direction, and might be better to start in Edinburgh, a much smaller and more compact city than London.

Another option between London and the north would be Rick Steves' tour of Southern England. It used to be called Villages of South England, but apparently villages didn't sell and now pretty much the same itinerary is just Best of South England: https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/eng...uthern-england

Thanks for all of the replies. We are going through a lot of the suggestions. As some of you already pointed out, this is a trip for my parents. They now know about the trip and are thrilled to go. I specifically asked them about where they wanted to go and they specifically said they wanted to stay in a village. Can't argue with that!

Perhaps ask them what they’d like to see?
Or let them read this thread.

Have them define "village", and describe what they want to do there. Maybe they have been watching too much British TV.

You can't argue as long as you plan appropriately. As mentioned transportation is the main obstacle to a nice time in a village. You need to go somewhere else, even nearby towns, for practical purposes so waiting for a local bus that runs rarely doesn't work. Renting a car is the answer. Do that and you can stay anywhere. The impractical becomes perfectly doable.

MmePerdu makes a very valid point. Staying in an idyllic English village without their own transport without their own car will effectively mean they will be going nowhere for the duration. Many, if not most of these small villages will have VERY limited public transport options. One bus a day or none at all, is not uncommon. Even if they did rent a car, if they haven’t even been on a plane, would they be happy be happy driving our wonderfully winding and narrow country lanes on the wrong side of the road?

However, clearly, you know your parents better than anyone here, how do you feel they cope?

So maybe the castle is off the requirements and a definite yes for a village.
Here are some things to help you.
On the way to Scotland and North of London.

explorethecotswolds.com/cotswolds-by-public-transport
greentraveller.co.uk/post/car-free-guide-yorkshire-dales-national-park
yorkshire.com/about-yorkshire/getting-around-yorkshire/transport/getting-around-yorkshire
visitnorthumberland.com/travel-tips/while-youre-here/getting-around
lakedistrictonboard. com
These are guides and posted to help you make up your mind if public transport and staying a a village can be on the agenda. Only you can decide that. You have to make some choices .

It is possible to tour the UK by public transport. I have done it, but I did not stay in non-touristy villages. The smallest place I have stayed was Lyme Regis, but while its year-round population is just under 5,000 it is very definitely on the tourist circuit. That is why I had a choice of where to stay, and where to eat. It is also has reasonable bus service. You can read about that trip here: https://www.fodors.com/community/eur...sport-1123732/

I would say that driving on rural roads in the UK is not for the faint of heart. I grew up and learned to drive stick there (automatics are not standard), but I have chosen not to drive there since 2004. Any trip involving public transport in the countryside should be planned with care. Bear in mind that bus service to small villages is probably designed to take kids to school and back, and will not run on the weekend. Even places with better service may have none on Sundays.

How about Alnwich? It's north of London (six hours by car), and about 2 hours to Edinburgh, has a famous castle, nearby sites of interest, bus connections and a population of about 8,000. It's a small town rather than a village or hamlet, but has at least something to do after the first day. It's also the home of the House of Hardy, famed maker of fishing tackle. Just throwing this out there. I do think you'll want something more after a few days.

Alnwick is fine -- but the OPs parents aren't renting a car and the area is not that easy to visit by bus. Alnmouth does have a train station just 5 miles away, but the line only runs north and south along the coast (i.e. Newcastle > Edinburgh)

Only one of the above has a train station. Just throwing out castles / villages really doesn't help the OP without taking into consideration the parents requirements (no car, touring by public transport, village with enough nearby fill a three week stay, etc.)

Can we at least reduce the village to say, four or five days? Three weeks in a village is a terrible idea. In fact, three weeks in a lot of towns isn't much better. There is so much to see in the UK that it is tragic to limit yourselves that way.

Not a village, at least not by UK standards, and not even in England but maybe Conwy would work.
Plenty of things to see and do not too far away, with reasonable public transport, certainly a castle to visit, and another few not too far away if one isn't enough.

Or Warwick? Again not a village but has a castle.

Split the time you have into different areas of the UK.

Those websites linked above do paint a rosy picture of how easy it is to get around the UK using public transport however, on the ground with luggage, etc., it would be a very different experience. I love our villages and have even lived in a few. On our travels around the world we actively seek out small villages whether that be in Peru Colombia or Vietnam etc.. The difference is that those countries operate much more integrated and extensive (and cheaper) public transport where it is very easy to get around. That used to be the case here - in the 1960s1!

A lot has happened to public transport in the UK in recent years, particularly to bus services, none of it for the better! Services have been savagely cut across the board in rural areas throughout much of the country. Add to that the prospect of widespread industrial action affecting the railways throughout this summer and visiting the UK utilising public transport is not something I would recommend to anyone unless, by some miracle, the strikes are called off. Stay in a village - rent a car. It is that simple!

Buses may or may not be affected but will be much busier as a result and, I would envisage, often subject to delays. Stay in an idyllic English village by all means, just don't expect to go very far when you get there.

I've seen this thread (and the "original" companion) a few times now, and every time I see it I'm tempted to dive in, but I've resisted. I think the OP really is looking for a unicorn, and I do wonder if there's some misapprehension about "villages" in the UK, brought on possibly by too many Miss Marple or BBC/PBS TV series.

Size matters. Too small and there are few (or no) day-to-day services available - groceries, transport, etc. Too big and, well, it's not really a village, but a town - market town, suburb, whatever term you want to apply. The sweet spot seems to me to be a place where there are enough services and variety to keep boredom away, but where things are still walkable, quiet and where one-on-one human connections are possible.

I also thought about Alnwick; having worked there briefly I think it might do, particularly on the castle front. The train station isn't in town, but it's close by and easily reached by bus or taxi. The middle of the town can be quite busy and trafficky, but the precincts around the castle are superb, and there's decent bus service from Alnwick to other places along the Northumberland coast - Seahouses, Bamburgh, even (via a shuttle) to the Holy Island.

However another place that crossed my mind - IF the OP's parents can tolerate a "village" with around 10,000 people in it, is Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. It has train service, more than enough tourist (and residential) services, and it's big enough and popular enough that it likely has some accommodation options. It may be TOO popular, but that's going to be a risk in any small town or village that has any appeal to visitors. Using train, bus or taxi services, other nearby locations could be explored - York, Staithes, etc., and it's definitely on the way to Scotland, if that is still of interest. The town itself has lots going for it - marvelous ruined abbey, Captain Cook connections, access to the North York moors... But it's also very popular and may be too "touristy" for the OP's parents. Hard to judge.

Not sure if this is helpful, but I had to join this thread to keep from getting frustrated.