england for a month

Allison, where do you currently live and are you able to travel to England? It's mid September and there are still a number of travel bans from a number of countries. As the Coronavirus rates increase I don't expect travel restrictions to ease for the coming months.

That aside, whereabouts are you planning to attend school? (University presumably?) For creative arts York doesn't jump out at me in that respect, I'd be thinking more along the lines of London, Brighton, Bristol, Liverpool or Manchester to name a few.

There are so many places outside of a big city but with easy rail connections that it is almost impossible to recommend a particular place with such wide parameters to start with.

I guess you don't wish to rent a car? Using the trains will work, but you will miss some great places.

We did a four week drive tour of S. Wales and England in 2017 and loved it.
Here is my detailed review that may assist:
28 days in Britain and Celebrity Eclipse home
https://www.cruisecritic.com/memberreviews/memberreview.cfm?EntryID=599139

I would divide up my time into 3-5 places for a home base.

For Southwestern England, consider Bath or Oxford as a base. If you want to visit S. Wales, Cardiff is good.
We loved Winchester, but you can take the train from London.
If interested in Cornwall, recommend Exeter.

York is a great idea for a base, you could visit Durham. Not sure if you could do a day trip to Whitby, but Whitby is nice.

We used Chipping Campden for visiting the Cotswolds, but it has no train station. To do the Cotswolds you need two days. Find a private tour from Oxford or rent a car for a couple of days.

For SE England, London is best, but Canterbury might be an idea.

It's difficult to identify places that might be convenient to you when we don't know what places you'll need to visit for your research. Although you can travel from London all the way to Edinburgh in about 4-1/2 hours, starting or ending in a small town will mean fewer miles covered per hour (because the fast trains don't stop in small places), and having to make connections will slow you down further.

The best place to check train schedules is the NationalRail website at nationalrail.co.uk.

You can, indeed, day-trip from York to Whitby (by bus). I did it last year.

Birmingham and Lancaster are great choices for research-intensive fields you can contact the universities there they always provide accommodation places somewhere nearby.

Why not stay across the river in Richmond.? You have Kew Gardens and Richmond Park. There’s a lovely “Main Street”, with shops, cafes, restaurants and pubs. From Richmond Station it’s 35 minutes into London, (Victoria Station) on the tube. District Line.

Or stay in Ealing where it’s a 7 minute train ride to Paddington station.

Pho Saigon is a favorite restaurant. Fabulous pastries and coffee at Ginger and Moore. Across the road from TK Maxx. Stayed at a flat at the entrance of the famed Ealing Studios.
Believe the building was called Walpole Court.

All of above intel from pre Covid stays.

The most connected place in England is Sheffield. There are trains that go to all four corners of the country from there. It is also one of the greenest cities in England, having 60% of the city as green space, and a third of the city within the peak district national park. The arts scene is alive and thriving in Sheffield, and its the home of the world's oldest football club.

The arts scene is alive and thriving in Sheffield

still? How is that happening?

Sheffield is also famous, or infamous, for being destroyed in the 1984 film Threads which was a much more horrific vision of nuclear war than The Day After.

But, I liked it, the industrial revolution cities in the North of England are quite appealing to me

Hi Allison,
Sabbatical Homes dot com should be able to help you. It's only for academic email accounts, for either university students or professors on sabbatical. Hope it helps!
-Alison B.

https://www.sabbaticalhomes.com/