The Sunday Times has identified Harrogate as one of the best places to live in the UK.
The newspaper’s annual Best Places to Live list, published today, names the town as one of nine places in the north and north-east of England, and 70 nationally, which are among the most desirable.
Judges cited the town’s schools, parks, shops, cafes and restaurants as among its attractions, describing it as “all the fun and fresh air of Yorkshire without any of the gritty bits”.
They listed an average house price of £390,000, which they said had risen by 20% in the last two years.
The Times and Sunday Times property editor Helen Davies, one of the list’s judges, said:
“The Sunday Times Best Places to Live list is necessarily subjective. Leave it just to statistics and you will never capture the spirit of a place.
“For that, you need to visit to take into account that ‘you have to be here’ feeling. Is the pub dog-friendly, for example? Can you live car-free? What are the schools and houses like? Is it multicultural and multigenerational, and can it offer a good way of life to lots of different sorts of people?
“Ten years ago, when we launched the inaugural list, London’s gravitational pull was strong, the WFH [working-from-home] revolution had not yet reached our doorstep and high streets were stacked with chains. How times have changed — and how welcome that change is.”
Read more:
Ilkley has topped the Sunday Times Best Places to Live list for 2022, though Slaithwaite in West Yorkshire was named as the best place to live in the north and north-east of England.
Also on the list for the region were Leeds City Centre, Cawthorne in South Yorkshire, Hovingham and Great Ayton in North Yorkshire, Tynemouth in Tyne and Wear, and Morpeth in Northumberland.
Harrogate last appeared on the list in 2016. In 2020, Ripon was featured, while last year Masham was singled out as one of the top places to live.
Property website Rightmove has frequently listed Harrogate as one of the happiest places to live in the UK.
More dubiously, a BBC Two programme named it as the country’s “porn capital” in 2010, with more people browsing for explicit content than anywhere else. Three years earlier, it was identified as the second-worst place for problematic drinking in a study conducted by the North West Health Observatory at the Centre for Public Health.
Masham named in Sunday Times Best Places to LiveWith its Georgian market place, two breweries and idyllic setting beside the River Ure, locals have known for years that Masham is a wonderful place to live.
But now the secret is out. The Sunday Times has included the market town in its annual Best Places to Live guide.
Masham is one of nine runners-up behind Ilkley in the north-east of England category. No other town or city in the Harrogate district was selected.
The Sunday Times judges based their decision on factors such as schools, air quality, transport and health of the high street.
They described Masham as:
“A picturesque market town in its own right that offers the best of both worlds.
“The extraordinary landscape of the Yorkshire Dales is on the doorstep and Ripon, with its top selective school and Curzon cinema, is just a short drive away.”
The judges listed their favourite things as the market, the Black Sheep Brewery and Johnny Baghdad’s ‘funky bright-yellow café on the square’.
Colin Blair, aka Johnny Baghdad
Independent businesses
Colin Blair, who owns Johnny Baghdad’s, said Masham had got busier in the 20 years since he arrived and now had a good blend of independent businesses. He said:
“It’s a great place and a great place to run a business from.”
Mr Blair, who runs Johnny Baghdad’s with his partner Saeeda Zaman, was delighted to be recognised.
He said the cafe’s eclectic food, which includes everything from falafel and chicken shawarma to bacon rolls, went down well with locals, as well as the numerous cyclists and day trippers that flock to the town at weekends. He added:
“It’s the kind of thing you don’t see often when travelling around the Yorkshire Dales.”
Read more:
The cafe is currently open only for takeaways but is due to open with tables and seating on April 12.
The other regional runners up are:
· Alnmouth, Northumberland
· Barnard Castle, Co Durham
· Easingwold, North Yorkshire
· Leeds
· Masham, North Yorkshire
· Slaithwaite, West Yorkshire
· Todmorden, West Yorkshire
· Tynemouth, Tyne & Wear
· York