I grew up in Bamber Bridge - watch as I go back to look at the most and least expensive streets
This week I was handed some data about the most - and least - expensive places to live in Bamber Bridge.
Now, as it happens, I spent the first 10 years of my life living in Bamber Bridge, went to St Saviour’s C of E Primary School, and then in 2010, when I had just turned 25, bought my first house (on my own) in Brownedge Lane. So I felt qualified to do this piece.
Fast sales company Property Solvers tracked average sold price data from HM Land Registry since 2019 to see where the highest and lowest-priced homes are located across the Bamber Bridge postcodes, picking out only those places that had three or more sales. They said some of the cheapest residential streets in Bamber Bridge were The Pickerings and Lonsdale Mews, but these are actually in Lostock Hall and are sheltered housing complexes.
The cheapest road
Montgomery Street came in third, with three sales in five years, averaging £82,166. I headed off, knowing exactly where it was because sometimes I used to park my car there, popping into the now-gone NatWest on the corner of Mounsey Road and Station Road.
Montgomery Street is fairly short, with maybe a dozen houses on it. It’s your typical mill workers housing from the 1900 period - brick-built two-up, two-downs with stone lintels, front doors straight off the path, and yards at the back. From sales particulars I can see on Rightmove, the homes recently for sale have been well-kept, modernised, and bedrooms are generously proportioned for the overall size of the house. They’re not your dream homes, but they’re not bad, and for a first time buyer, a couple, a downsizer, or as an investment, something in the £80,000 region shouldn’t be sniffed at.
At the Wesley Street end of Montgomery Street now stands an estate of 200 start-up, family homes. In my opinion, that’s a huge improvement on what used to be there - the ugly, derelict Wesley Street Mill used to loom over the area until its demolition between 2013 and 2015. There’s also a school a few hundred yards away, and you’re on the doorstep of the bustling Station Road, which has very few empty units, is very clean and well-kepy and still retains it’s proud sense of community. Overall, it’s a great location. You’re less than a five-minute walk from the railway station, and you’re a five-minutre drive from the M6, M65 and M61. There’s a huge Sainsbury’s B&Q, Matalan, Aldi, Morrisons, all a short distance away, and every kind of takeaway you could possibly desire in the town, as well as butchers, banks, salons, gift shops, gyms, vets, plenty of bars, and the 650-acre Cuerden Valley Park is very close by.
The most expensive road
Two miles away from Montgomery Street is Kellet Lane, where there have been six sales in the past five years, achieving an average of £497,500. Sherwood Court and Sandy Lane had higher average prices, but they’re in Lostock Hall and Brindle, so I visited the true Bamber Bridge champion.
And so, is it chalk and cheese with Montgomery Street? Well, yes. Kellet Lane is an old country lane, which, despite seeing the Walton Summit industrial park spring up around it, still retains hedgerows, field views, and a selection of lovely old, characterful cottages. There’s also bungalows with private gates and then a couple of enclaves of much larger, detached homes from possibly the 1990s and 2000s. Where Montgomery Street was short and quiet, this road is winding and busy - with some heavy vehicles - but there’s greenery and hedgerows, wide footpaths and private driveways.
The location is curious though. As I said before, the lane has seen development spring up all around it, and I had to drive through an industrial estate to get there, but it can also be accessed from the more residential Brindle Road. From aerial photographs I can see that gardens of some houses back onto industrial units, and so how peaceful a location it is, I don’t know.
But when I look at recent house sales along here, I can see that although it’s the priciest Bamber Bridge postcose, you’re getting a reasonable bang for your buck compared to some other areas of South Ribble. There’s some very large, well-appointed executive homes on this road, with fabulous connectivity to the motorway network, as well as into the countryside around Hoghton.