Long Buckby
LONG BUCKBY Having grown up around the railway, canal and A5, the attraction of Long Buckby is good communications rather than charm. With a strong Victorian core and a plethora of Seventies estates, it stretches for one-and-a-half miles and contains a population of 4,500. There are shops, a post office, dentist, vet and GP’s surgery. A four-bedroom detached house might cost £230,000, but something grander in a landscaped garden could reach £380,000. A Grade Two listed Regency country house would fetch around £895,000. The cheapest houses are Victorian cottages selling for up to £145,000.
Good for: access to the M1 for the North and the M6 for the Midlands.
Local knowledge: the village was a centre of weaving and woolcombing until 1800, then it began to specialise in the boot and shoe wear. The need to absorb incomers over the centuries meant that it favoured radical politics (the Chartists were strong here) and non-conformist religion.
, now in its fourth edition, by award-winning property journalist Caroline McGhie.