Northern Lights: four homes in the north that have us in awe

The jewel in the county’s crown, York is hard to beat. But we think living just outside the city might just pip it to the post. This house, in the pretty village of Gate Helmsley, just a 15-minute drive from the centre of York, certainly makes a strong case for it.

The words ‘Yorkshire farmhouse’ might throw up notions of dour, dark and draughty cottages (heaven knows we’ve seen enough BBC dramas), but not here. Built in 1759, this handsome house – once a working holding – bears all the hallmarks of its Georgian past. Sash windows? Tick. Shutters? Tick. High ceilings, crisp mouldings and perfect proportions? Tick, tick, tick. And, thanks to some sensitive interventions and some seriously good stylistic choices, it’s the very picture of modern comfort. Hats off to whoever designed the green bedroom with the clover-leaf wallpaper, which ranks among our favourite sleeping spaces ever.

View listing here.

Another Georgian gem, this elegant townhouse is found in the middle of Congleton, a charming market town at the foot of the Pennines. Its red-brick façade is the first of a generous handful of notable features, its pedimented front door, raised on steps and with an elegant fanlight, surrounded by serried rows of sash windows with unusually moulded heads and sills.

Inside, the first impression is one of quiet grandeur, thanks to the gently unfolding hallway, lit from on high by a generous window in the stairwell. That sense of unstuffy sophistication continues throughout, the house’s decorative panelling and proportions brought to their full potential with a light, bright scheme of white and neutral tones. The kitchen, with its locally made cabinetry, solid wooden worktops and stained-glass window, gets our particular approval.

It’s a rare treat to have such space in the middle of a town (the floorplan covers nearly 3,000sq ft) – let alone a town of such buzziness. Stroll outside and you’ve a raft of shops, delis and cafés on your doorstop, as well as a twice-weekly market on Tuesdays and Saturdays. And, if the big city beckons, you can be in Manchester in 40 minutes on the train.

View listing here.

This Victorian house in the Derwent valley has been beautifully restored and reworked by its current owners. Just 20 minutes in the car from Newcastle, it feels surprisingly rural, surrounded by rampant greenery and with its own kitchen garden, pond and orchard to boot.

Interiors-wise, the delights are manifold, from the sitting room’s mottled red walls to the glossy olive of the stair hall, the trailing vines of the dining room’s paper to the ethereal magic of the Morris & Co design picked for the attic. This bedroom is, quite simply blissful, the current owners having made the brilliant decision to take down a dividing wall between two garret rooms to create a single open airy one. Where better to flop after a day’s stomping in the Pennines or Lake District than here?

View listing here.

Nantwich redefines the concept of a commuter town. This is no dour dormitory settlement with silent streets Monday to Friday, but instead a pretty market town with cute cafés, a public brine lido and a buzzing literary and music festival, conveniently close to both Crewe (eight minutes by train) and Manchester (45 minutes). It also has the second largest number of historic homes in Cheshire, many of them Tudor and Georgian (and the highest concentration of listed buildings in the country).

Among its architectural treasures is this house on Mill Street, built in 1790 and, from the outside, still remarkably unchanged. Walk through the original pedimented door, however, and you’ll find a radically reconceived series of living spaces. Currently divided into three holiday rentals (which could easily be combined with the removal of some internal doors), the house has been designed with both modern living and heritage references in mind: ancient timber crucks meet cool grey walls in an attic bedroom, for instance, while red bricks – like the façade’s – joins zinc worktops and mirrored splashbacks in the kitchen. And as for the chandelier-lit bathroom with the vanity unit-cum-bar, designed for a mid-soak splash of something? Bottoms up!

View listing here.