Interesting small towns for a short stay

What a good idea for a thread!

I'll add to that to say these personal favourites:

• Bath (as it's in Somerset) and the beginning of the Cotswold Way which I tirelessly lobby for here :)
• From Dorchester go to Weymouth and the Isle of Portland
• Gloucester and Cheltenham (Gloucestershire)
• Chepstow (to add to Monmouthshire), as it's the start of Offa's Dyke trail which passes Tintern Abbey
• Bristol as an alternative to London

Closer to where I'm based:
- Winchester
- Brockenhurst and the New Forest (delicious bakery in B'hurst and there are ponies!)
- Weymouth and the Isle of Portland
- Wareham, Corfe Castle, and Swanage

I love this topic! Below are my favorite towns that I have stayed in in the UK. I’m sorry that none of them are undiscovered.

In Yorkshire: Whitby, Richmond and Grassington
In Wales: Crickhowell and St Davids
Keswick
Lynton
Mevagissey
Salisbury
Bakewell

I am going to western England and Wales in the spring and hope to discover more!

We really enjoyed Lewes which is a short train ride from Gatwick Airport. We spent two nights there after an overnight flight. It's got castle and priory ruins, as well as the Anne of Cleves house which I think is underrated.

Allan - I think you mean the Anne of Cleves House.

For a two night break and I think worth more time, it would be --

Ironbridge in Shropshire

Johnew52, many thanks for posting this topic!
Thank you for your suggestions.....all sound great!
The thread John refers to was this one:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/england/side-trip-to-stratford-upon-avon-from-london
in which a pretty thorough discussion took place about SUA.

I am loving the suggestions by everyone!

Many places in Cumbria just outside the Central Lakes, so very accessible but little touristed- for starters- Penrith, Cockermouth and Kendal;

also on the fringes- Appleby, Sedbergh, Ulverston, Grange-over-Sands and Cartmel, Alston (on the Northumberland Border- so both Cumbria and Hadrian's Wall

Central Lakes but little visited on this forum- Hawkshead and Coniston;

Northumberland- Hexham and Corbridge (both for Hadrian's Wall), Morpeth (instead of Alnwick/Alnmouth), Newbiggin-by-the-Sea (for the little known South Northumberland Coast), Wooler and Rothbury (for inland Northumberland/the Northumberland National Park)

Peak District fringe towns- Leek, Whaley Bridge, Marple and Glossop.

Warwick
Windsor
East or West Cowes, Isle of Wight
Yarmouth, Isle of Wight
Bosham
Lymington
Wells
Bath
Salisbury

Look north east of London. For some reason this area is largely ignored by this forum. Loads of history, gentle landscapes, lovely villages, stately homes, coastline towns and villages etc. well worth exploring. To get you started:

Cambridge,
Ely
The county of Suffolk and particularly the wool towns - Lavenham, Sudbury, Clare, Long Melford, Hadleigh, and Bury St Edmunds for medieval buildings and beautiful churches..

Norwich, the county city of Norfolk…cathedral and castle
Aldeburgh
Dunwich
The Broads - rent a cabin cruiser and spend a few days wandering through the protected waterways of Norfolk and Suffolk, small villages, pubs and wildlife.

Go to Google, enter Norfolk and Suffolk for lots of information and ideas.

Lesley,
When I was flying home from London in October, my seat mate started up a conversation (I promise it was not me! I try very hard to not be an overly chatty American). He was a dear young man about my son’s age that was from Norwich. He had so many wonderful things to say about that lesser known (to me, at least) region of England and all of the activities and places you could see if you were a visitor there. I told him he missed his calling working for the tourism department. :)

John, Rye is HIGH on my list of places.

But here are a few more:

Helmsley
Mousehole
Castleton (agreeing with you)

And don't forget this article that has some gems: Chocolate-box heaven: 8 prettiest villages within a day's reach of London

When I click on the chocolate box villages links I keep getting a blank screen. Would someone be willing to list the 8 villages?

I'm going to second Lewes. I've been there several times and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll have to make it a point to visit Anne of Cleves' house, though!

You might like the BBC series ‘Villages By The Sea’. If you Google You Tube Villages by The Sea - you will find several of these 30 minute programmes. Here is one on Beer in Devon:>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC3j9ZCbMV8

The 8 Chocolate Box Villages are-
Shere (Surrey),
Ditchling (East Sussex),
Great Missenden (Buckinghamshire),
Bosham (West Sussex),
Brockenhurst (Hampshire),
Broadway (Worcestershire),
Cookham (Berkshire),
and
Bibury (Gloucestershire)

Great Missenden is a classic case of what people miss. When on this forum people ask what can we do from London for a day trip? a very hackneyed short list crops up every time.
Yet Great Missenden is a 50 minute train ride every 30 minutes from London Marylebone.

It was the birthplace of author Roald Dahl, and was also used as a film set in the TV series Midsomer Murders,

Yes I fully agree with it's place on the list, but is only one of a number of lovely villages or small towns in the Chilterns AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty). Some are even at the Zone 9 end of the Metropolitan line tube line.

Shere (in the much undiscovered, on here, county of Surrey) is just 90 minutes (by train then a short bus ride) from Waterloo, every hour.

Cookham is 53 minutes (sometimes as fast as 35) from Paddington, and only 50 minutes from Heathrow- so a very worthy alternative to Windsor-the normal close to Heathrow option given.

In the Lake District I have only listed a few towns (per the title) but there are lots of villages I could add. However this forum has an awful lot of peer pressure to it (hence why the Cotswolds seems to be compulsory). And places people haven't heard of or been to or Rick hasn't been to just don't seem to make the cut- no matter how interesting they are.
At one stage I was doing a monthly list of events in the Lake District to encourage people from the usual tourist path but stopped because too few people were interested- it wasn't worth my time and effort.

Stuart - one reason for the thread was to try and make people aware of the vast number of choices that there are - another maybe hopeless attempt to widen the scope of many for whom the Cotswolds seems to be compulsory. On other forums when you get a poster from SE Asia you can almost guarantee that they will want to go to Bicester Shopping Village, which is perhaps even more bizarre.

I didn't mean to restrict the list to small towns, but I think what I was after was places small enough to give a contrast to the big cities and yet big enough to provide a decent level of services - accommodation, eateries etc.

Bath, Salisbury, Winchester, Tenby (Wales), Conwy (Wales), York (not small, but fantastic).

Thank you Stuart for listing the 8 villages. : )

However this forum has an awful lot of peer pressure to it (hence why the Cotswolds seems to be compulsory).

I disagree with that. I believe that when new posters request info on itineraries and the Cotswolds are prevalent, there seems to be a big push from more experienced travelers (and local members) to get them out of the main tourist areas (like the Cotswolds) and into some of the lesser known towns. The Cotswolds seem to be "compulsory" because of all the thousands of blog posts and guidebooks out there that push that area. Please don't blame the forum for that.

I do think that a lot of people who visit the UK are going to head to the main tourist attractions. That's been going on for centuries, and it won't stop just because others are pushing smaller off-the-beaten-path destinations. All we can do is provide the information and help for them to travel to lesser known areas, and hope that some of them utilize that info.

My wife had to go to England for business. While we spent most of our time in London, she did have to take a day trip to Peterborough. I wandered the town while she was in meetings, then we had lunch in town before traveling back to London that evening.

We found Peterborough a charming town with much to see and do. It's only about an hour from King's Cross station. I could easily spend a couple of days exploring Peterborough.

Lovely topic, taking notes!

Wareham in Dorset. A good base for those using public transportation.