What’s going for it? A confession: I have a dark side. Most days, I love the hurly hullabaloo of life. Other days, though, I get all prim. I neaten skew-whiff coasters on the coffee table. I get enraged at litter-droppers. There’s a dictator lurking inside me. Someone like Titus Salt. Titus had opinions about neatness. He ruled over the model village he built for his workers like a benevolent Gradgrind, with one hand giving them the luxuries of backyards, loos and bathhouses (pimp my slum!), the other building tidy, grid-iron avenues in one, and only one, style of architecture, banning washing lines and enforcing a two-baths-a-week rule on his employees. My kind of man. I’m sure he had opinions about coasters, too. The result? More profit in his textile mill. More beauty in his streets. Slightly less smelly people.
The case against The rest of the world beyond: messy. Listed to the hilt and a world heritage site, so curb your grand designs, lest you offend Salt’s.
Well connected? Trains: half-hourly to Leeds (17 minutes) and Bradford Forster Square (12-14 minutes), four an hour the other way to Keighley (10 minutes) and Skipton (30). Driving: 15 minutes to downtown Bradford, 40 to Leeds and the M1, a half-hour drive to Skipton, a bit longer to get up into the Dales.
Schools Primaries: Saltaire, St Walburga’s Catholic, Wycliffe CofE, and nearby Glenaire are all “good”, says Ofsted. Secondaries: Titus Salt School is “good”.
Hang out at… I have a soft spot for Salt’s Diner in Salt’s Mill, surrounded by David Hockneys. The Cap & Collar for “proper” beer.
Where to buy The village is an elegant affair of stone, Italianate terraces and town houses, amid civic monuments built by architects Henry Lockwood and William Mawson. The grid has modest terraces and grander affairs around Titus Street (all the streets are named after Salt, his family and, ahem, “favourite” maids). Swanky flats in the mills. Posh suburbans outside the Unesco site, across the Bingley Road around Nab Lane, Nab Wood and Moorhead Lane. Detacheds and town houses, £400,000-£700,000. Detacheds and smaller town houses, £200,000-£400,000. Semis, £130,000-£375,000. Terraces and cottages, £125,000-£315,000. Flats, £75,000-£230,000. Rentals: a one-bed, £400-£625pcm.
Bargain of the week Three-bedroom listed stone semi in the village proper, by the Aire and lovely Roberts Park, needs modernising, £230,000 jiestates.co.uk.
From the streets
Sophie Marfell “The Yorkshire Dales in its rugged beauty, yet 15 minutes by train to vibrant Leeds.”
Marjorie Ashdown “A World Heritage village where good houses can be bought for peanuts!”
Michael Hallewell “The Jolly Bean roastery roasts coffee to order and delivers it through your letterbox.”
Do you live in Aberaeron, west Wales? Do you have a favourite haunt or pet hate? If so, email lets.move@theguardian.com by next Tuesday.
