The Sunday Times - UK (2022-04-10)

F G B D E A

C

Best Places to Live 2022

Mill marvel

Slaithwaite

residents

Rebecca

Eatwell and

her husband,

Simon Begg,

and daughter,

Arabella. Inset

right: the

Bamforth family

of Hey Knowle

Farm. Left:

Cawthorne.

Below:

Harrogate

CAWTHORNE,

SOUTH YORKSHIRE A

The no-nonsense folk in

Barnsley will tell you that S36,

three miles to the west, is

where the go-getting families

go as soon as they can afford it

— and get a place at Ofsted-

rated outstanding Cawthorne

C of E (VC) Primary School, a

feeder for Penistone Grammar

School, regarded as the best

state school in the district.

And why not? Last weekend it

was a performance of

Handel’s Messiah in the grade

II* listed church. This

weekend, wine and nibbles

with Dan Jarvis, MP for

Barnsley Central and the

mayor of South Yorkshire, at

the reopening of the

Cawthorne Jubilee Museum,

while the Cawthorne Open

Gardens in aid of charity is

already in the village diary.

This is just how life is.

Prosperous and pleasant, and

a quirk of the road network

keeps Cawthorne quiet.

“We are fairly self-sufficient

as a village,” says father-of-two

Chris Scorah, 45, who took

over Cawthorne’s post office

with his wife, Sandra, ten

years ago and lives above the

shop. “It’s all those little

things we have: Hilary’s

village shop, the school, the

cricket and football teams,

the watering holes.”

Add to that Cannon Hall,

with its collection of glorious

Moorcroft ceramics, pre-

Raphaelite art and child-

friendly parkland; the

excellent Cannon Hall Garden

Centre; the Underneath the

Stars Festival; a hall where

everything from brass band

practice to Pilates fill up the

rota; and Cannon Hall Farm

and its farm shop, where

Channel 5’s This Week on the

Farm is filmed, and it’s no

LORNE CAMPBELL/GUZELIAN FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES; DARREN GALPIN; MICHAEL BROOKS/ALAMY

would say it has been all the

better for it. While everyone

was paying over the odds in

the Howardian Hills and

trying to get a phone signal in

the Yorkshire Dales, the

18th-century boyhood home

of Captain James Cook has

navigated the contemporary

high-street slump successfully.

Endeavour is everywhere:

hairdressers, cafés, beauty

therapists and homeware

shops have all opened in the

past decade, while Sharman

Wines does free delivery

within a 20-mile radius taking

North &

Northeast

Spa, market, seaside or mill? There’s a town

for everyone in Yorkshire and beyond (and

if you’re a city slicker, there’s always Leeds)

AVERAGE HOUSE PRICE

£211,000

*Source: Halifax using Land Registry data

wonder that this Yorkshire

village is a bobby dazzler.

Best place to live if... You

want soul and some seriously

cool summertime culture.

Best address Lane Head

Road or Bark House Lane.

£414,000*

GREAT AYTON,

NORTH YORKSHIRE B

If you thought there was

nowhere nice to live around

Middlesbrough, look again.

Great Ayton is a village which

few have heard of and many

16 April 10, 2022