Looking to move back up north (actually it's my wife), with my family living in Warrington and her father living in Chesterfield we decided to live inbetween and chose this area, although it's a beautiful area the property is very cheap, just wondering if there's a reason for that and if anyone has any info on the areas in the High Peak district

Chapel-en-le-Frith
Whaley Bridge
New Mills
and all the little villages around

Thanks

Although it's a while ago now (1999), we moved back North.
We looked at it logically and made a list of what we felt was important, i.e. Preferably stone-built Victorian (or older) house with character, cellar and/or garage, walking distance from the railway station (on a line direct to Manchester), walking distance from shops etc, nearby cash machine, at least one pub, at least one restaurant etc ... stuff like that, someone else's list would obviously vary from ours.
We found that the villages were cheapest even back then too but they mostly would have meant having to get the car out to do anything at all.
That would have been too much of a change for us, we were used to London.
Obviously nowhere was going to be "like" London and we weren't looking for an impossible equivalent but the things on the list were what we wanted.
Back then Chapel e-l-F seemed a little run down (might be fine now, I don't know) and we very nearly ended up in Buxton which ticked an awful lot of boxes, a nice town with stuff going on and a theatre as well.

Depends what you want but look at the weather right now ... for me, a small town is better than a village in weather like this.

Many forget to add in the cost of the obligatory 4x4

I already had a Land Rover Series III back then.
Wish I had it now!

I'm still frankly amamzed at the number of customers I visit that have a "spare" 4x4 parked on the drive. Husband & wife use standard cars for the standard commute, then as soon as the white stuff comes down, the Audis and Mercs are on the drive and the Landy, Range or Cayenne are missing

Well, I had the SIII and then a Disco (for a while I had both, the SIII was like a member of the family).
But even the Disco guzzled too much to use for driving to projects .... and the SIII, well, you didn't want to drive long distances in that without ear protection and a mortgage for the fuel (despite the freewheeling front hubs and the Fairey overdrive).
Now I just drive what's basically a comfy sofa ... which is, as sofas are, lousy in snow.

So it's cheap because of the lack of amenities?

I was starting to think it was either full of rough criminal types or i've lived down south too long and lost touch with reality.

That ... and the cost of getting to anywhere with those amenities ... that's about all I can think of because some of the villages are bloody gorgeous.


That is always a possibility of course.
It certainly was with us when we returned, we couldn't believe the prices ... we could (effectively) swap a one-bedroom flat in the East End for a large house oop North.
So we did.

And ... AND ... it meant getting to see more rugby that didn't involve the Broncos.