England

England's Most Underrated Cities

Move over London. The rest of England has arrived.

England beyond the M25 is full of places that have been excellent for years while being quietly overlooked. These cities have great food, great architecture, and the distinct advantage of not being overcrowded. Take note.

8 places

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8 of 8 places

The Philharmonic Dining Rooms

£8–£22

Mount Pleasant · Liverpool

Grade I listed Victorian pub on Hope Street, the most ornate pub interior in England, bar none.

Angel of the North

Free

Gateshead · Newcastle

Antony Gormley's 20-metre steel figure on a hill above the A1, bigger, stranger, and more affecting than any photo.

Kirkgate Market

£0–£15

City Centre · Leeds

Europe's largest covered market, 800 stalls across two halls, every cuisine, every price point, no tourists.

Leeds Corn Exchange

£0–£20

City Centre · Leeds

Cuthbert Brodrick's 1864 domed Corn Exchange, independent traders, street food, and one of Leeds's best interiors.

Grainger Market

£0–£15

City Centre · Newcastle

Newcastle's 1835 covered market, where Marks & Spencer started as a penny bazaar, still trading with full original character.

Ikon Gallery

£0–£5

Brindleyplace · Birmingham

Free contemporary art in a converted Gothic school, one of England's best mid-size galleries.

Roman Baths

£18

City Centre · Bath

A 2,000-year-old Roman bathing complex around a natural hot spring, the lead-lined Great Bath still steams.

Wapping Wharf

£10–£30

Harbourside · Bristol

Converted shipping containers on the harbourside. Bristol's best street food cluster, independent and genuinely good.

The Philharmonic Dining Rooms in Liverpool is a pub so ornate it was listed by English Heritage. Leeds' Corn Exchange is a Victorian trading hall that now houses independent shops under a glass dome. These aren't undiscovered, they're just under-visited.

Birmingham's Ikon Gallery in Brindleyplace is one of the best contemporary art spaces in England, internationally significant, free entry, and in a city that most people still write off. England keeps rewarding people who bother to look.

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