Holiday Cottages In Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester has around 75 self-catering cottages on selfcatering.co.uk, most of them in the Pennine fringe villages of Saddleworth rather than the city centre. The county pairs a great northern city of museums and music with millstone-grit moors on its eastern edge, and more than 40 of those cottages take dogs while over 20 have a hot tub.

Best areas and towns in Greater Manchester

Almost all the self-catering here sits on the hilly eastern and northern rim of the county, in the old textile villages where the streets climb straight onto the moor. The largest concentration by far is in Saddleworth, a cluster of Pennine villages in the Oldham borough that feels more like the Yorkshire dales than a city suburb.

• Delph and Diggle: two of the Saddleworth villages, stone-built and steep, right under the moor and the start of the Standedge canal tunnel
• Mossley and Stalybridge: mill towns in the upper Tame valley on the Tameside side of the hills
• Marple and Hazel Grove: leafier Stockport towns on the south-east edge, close to the Peak District and the canal flights
• Littleborough and Milnrow: Rochdale-side towns in the Roch valley below Blackstone Edge and Hollingworth Lake
• Oldham: a former cotton town on the hills, the gateway into Saddleworth
• Longdendale: the string of reservoirs and villages running east towards the Pennine watershed
• Bolton and Bury: large northern towns near the West Pennine Moors, Bury the home of its famous market and the East Lancashire steam railway
• Droylsden, Failsworth and Golborne: workaday towns closer in, handy for the city and the motorway network

For scenery and walking, base yourself in Saddleworth or on the moorland edge; for the city, almost anywhere here is a short tram or train ride from central Manchester.

The moors and country parks around Greater Manchester

For all its mills and motorways, Greater Manchester runs straight up into open hill country on three sides. The eastern edge climbs through Saddleworth onto the South Pennine moors, a high, dark landscape of millstone grit, peat and reservoirs that carries the Pennine Way along Blackstone Edge and the watershed. To the north and west lie the West Pennine Moors above Bolton and Bury, a protected area of moorland, woodland and reservoirs laced with walking and riding trails. Closer in, a ring of country parks gives easy green escapes: Reddish Vale Country Park follows the Tame through Stockport, while Alexandra Park is a fine Victorian park in Oldham. Hollingworth Lake near Littleborough and the Longdendale reservoirs add water to the walking, and the Peak District National Park begins just over the south-eastern boundary.

Things to do in Greater Manchester

The city is the draw for a wet day or a culture-heavy break. The Science and Industry Museum tells the story of the world's first industrial city on the site of the oldest passenger railway station, and the Manchester Museum and Manchester Art Gallery are among the best free collections in the north. Manchester Cathedral anchors the medieval quarter, and People's History Museum charts two centuries of working life and democracy. Out of town, the National Trust's Dunham Massey near Altrincham is a deer park and hall of the first rank, and RHS Garden Bridgewater at Worsley has restored one of the country's largest walled gardens. Families have SEA LIFE Manchester and the LEGOLAND Discovery Centre at the Trafford Centre.

When to visit Greater Manchester

The city is a year-round destination, with its museums, galleries and football at their busiest through autumn and winter and its festivals filling the summer. For the moors and the country parks, late spring and summer give the best of the walking, when the heather is greening on the Pennine tops and the reservoirs sparkle. Autumn brings colour to the wooded valleys around Marple and Reddish Vale. Winter is quiet and good value in the Saddleworth villages, ideal for a stone cottage with a hot tub after a cold day on the moor. Manchester's famous rain can arrive in any season, so pack for it.

Dog-friendly and hot-tub cottages in Greater Manchester

More than 40 of the cottages in Greater Manchester take dogs, and more than 20 have a hot tub. Browse the cottages that welcome dogs or cottages with a hot tub to narrow your search.

Getting to Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester sits in the north-west of England, about two hours from London and well under an hour from Liverpool by road. The M60 orbital motorway rings the conurbation, fed by the M6, M61, M62 and M56, so the moorland villages are easy to reach by car. Trains run from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly in just over two hours, and local lines and the Metrolink tram network reach out to Bury, Oldham, Marple and the edge towns. Manchester Airport, on the southern side of the county, is the largest in the UK outside London and has its own rail and tram links.

Useful links

• Visit Manchester
• Marketing Greater Manchester
• Peak District National Park

Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county in the north-west of England, the most populous in the country outside London and Greater London's northern counterpart as the commercial heart of the North. It is built around the city of Manchester and the neighbouring city of Salford, and takes in eight further boroughs, among them Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan. Though heavily urban at its core, the county is far from wholly built up.

The land sits in a bowl on the western flank of the Pennines, where the lowland plain of the Mersey and Irwell rivers meets rising ground on almost every side. To the east the moors climb steeply through Saddleworth onto the high South Pennine watershed of peat and millstone grit; to the north and west lie the West Pennine Moors above Bolton and Bury. River valleys, reservoirs and a dense network of canals thread between the towns, and a ring of Victorian parks and country parks brings green space close to the centre.

Greater Manchester was forged by the Industrial Revolution. Cotton spinning and weaving turned a cluster of market towns into the first great industrial conurbation, and Manchester earned the nickname Cottonopolis as the world's leading textile city. That heritage survives in the mills, warehouses and the pioneering Liverpool and Manchester Railway, while the modern county is known for its universities, music, sport and a thoroughly reinvented city centre.