What's the roughest place in England?

[sw2borshch]

What's the roughest place in England?

Houdi Elbow - the Border does still sort of exist - "over the border" meant St Hilda's, the oldest part of the town and the only residential area north of the town centre. The "border" itself is the railway line (and these days also the A66). St Hilda's has recently been rebranded as Middlehaven and pretty much all the housing has been evacuated of people (my auntie & uncle were forced out last year) so no-one actually lives there anymore and they've built a spanking brand new police station there.
The area has had a rough reputation as a no-go area for many decades, a place even the bobbies go in gangs, was one of the red light districts but also contained the bulk of the town's fine buildings - and seeing as we have so few it's a shame no one ever sees them!
Any visitor to Middlesbrough for the match since the Riverside opened has probably been "over the border" as the train station (obviously) straddles it.

[Wyatt Earp]

What's the roughest place in England?

WornOldMotorbike wrote:

And, given the legendary difficulty of obtaining a license, is people driving without one a big problem?

Is it really legendarily difficult? Cool.

[Wyatt Earp]

What's the roughest place in England?

WornOldMotorbike wrote:

And, given the legendary difficulty of obtaining a license, is people driving without one a big problem?

Is it really legendarily difficult? Cool.

[Gerontophile]

What's the roughest place in England?

WornOldMotorbike wrote:

Welcome back, gero. How was prison?

Thanks, WOM, full of old men, so, you know...

[AMMS]

What's the roughest place in England?

Duncan Gardner wrote:

Ultonia orange or green shitholes top ten:

10 Antrim
9 Ballymoney
8 Kilkeel
7 Newry
6 Portadown
5 Strabane
4 Larne
3 Magherafelt
2 Ballymena
1 Lurgan

How has Crossmaglen not made that list? It should be twinned with Mogadishu it is the most godawful place in the entire world. I'm picking up my wife's cousin later today who was brought up there and his childhood would be rejected as fiction by most Channel Five documentary makers. It is a seriously disturbed place.

And Rathcoole scared the shit out of me when I had to go to Crazy Prices for my messages.

Crossmaglen excluded I've never been anywhere that didn't have some redeeming qualities and even the poorest most excluded parts of the UK have many, many decent people living in them. Glasgow has its problem areas but I'd say some of the ex-mining towns in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire probably have bigger social problems these days and being a bit more remote they seem to have been largely forgotten about too.

[E10 Rifle]

What's the roughest place in England?

Have I missed something? Did Geros go inside?

Anyway, back on misleading place names, one of north London's biggest and grimmest housing estates is the evocatively named Woodberry Down, in Manor House/Finsbury Park. And up the road from me there's the rough as arseholes Hillyfields Estate in Walthamstow.

[Gerontophile]

What's the roughest place in England?

On a more serious note, there are no reasons to be a 'rough as fuck' town, although, killing people who are 'not your own', obviously helps (see threads passim about Bacup... although I must say I lived and worked there for 4 months, and it was rather ... ok, it was fucking mental)

Spalding (only speaking about places I have been) always struck me as a sort of village at the end of the end... and so it turned out to be. And yet, I go onto various matchup sites online, and it seems to be full of Lincolnshire people... perhaps they have found a use for all of their various limbs/ extra fingers etc.

Truly, Tottenham was really nice, Brixton was especially nice, but with both, I would suggest, that if you were a tourist, dont go to the side streets.

Glasgow was ok, but one only thinks that a place is rough, if you dont know it: there is a district of Rotterdam, south of the river, which is apparently as rough as fuck, and yet, I found the peeps to be as welcoming as any, anywhere. Maybe I am rough...

Blackpool is rough. Its full of twatty tourists (is that what the original post-er, meant?)

[Gerontophile]

What's the roughest place in England?

I HAVE NOT BEEN TO PRISON. THANKS.

I have been in hospital with pneumonia, and the spelling thereof. Now fuck off, all of you.

[Bored Of Education]

What's the roughest place in England?

I can't believe no one has mentioned Mansfield yet.

E10 is right about Merthyr but I am sure there are worse places around the valleys that make Merthyr seem like a thriving cosmopolitan hub. Glynneath springs to mind.

As far as London goes, most areas are too close to quite nice areas to be really rough.

I lived in Kensal Green which is next to Harlesden, murder capital of Britain allegedly, Toni Ann Byfeld was killed at the end of our street, every Notting Hill carnival there would a random shooting into a car nearby and I was shot at by an airgun.

Having said that, 99.99% of the time, I walked down the street to the local ponce palace to have a Hoegaarden and it would be like that bill Hicks quote about birds tweeting and the sun shining.

Similarly, when I lived in Dalston, I walked from Hackney back to there at 3am along Sandringham Road which was, at one point, "the most dangerous road in Britain" or somesuch according the Standard and nothing happened.

I think it has something to do with people who are involved in serious crime aren't likely to involve themselves in casual street violence. I would worry more coming out of a pub in Richmond at chucking out time than, say, Brixton.

Similarly I played a gig exclusively to the Hells Angels and some of their mates once and it was one of the most peaceful gigs I have ever been to

[Tubby Isaacs]

What's the roughest place in England?

Mansfield isn't too bad in the stats table I linked to (23 per thousand people). I suppose if a place were really rough people wouldn't report crime, and this is reported crime only.

Reading has a surprisingly high 34, the same as Middlesbrough and Leicester.

[Tubby Isaacs]

What's the roughest place in England?

By the way, to the NI boys, Bushmills didn't look very nice to me. How does that compare with your list?

[Bored Of Education]

What's the roughest place in England?

derris got us chased out of Mansfield by bottle throwing natives by sarcastically saying "Nice house" to a few who were minding their own business sitting on the sofa in the front garden

[Gangster Octopus]

What's the roughest place in England?

Ah, Cardiff City fans complaining about others. Don't you just love it...

[Bored Of Education]

What's the roughest place in England?

Fuck it, I'll complain about Cardiff fans as well. They can be the biggest bunch of cunts going and are the main reason it can be a pain in the arse to follow Cardiff sometimes (so people who follow Cardiff tell me)

[Duncan Gardner]

What's the roughest place in England?

AMMS & Tubby Isaacs wrote:

How has Crossmaglen not made that list?

And Rathcoole scared the shit out of me

Bushmills didn't look very nice to me

Respectively: village, single albeit large estate, village. But agreed, they're all horrible.

Rathcoole's football pitches (on the 'town' centre 'diamond') used to boast that four guys who learned the game there played in the 1982 World Cup finals.

[Gerontophile]

What's the roughest place in England?

Here:

[Spearmint Rhino]

What's the roughest place in England?

Bored of All the Beasts wrote:

derris got us chased out of Mansfield by bottle throwing natives by sarcastically saying "Nice house" to a few who were minding their own business sitting on the sofa in the front garden

Good. He was totally asking for it.

[Etienne]

What's the roughest place in England?

As regards Cardiff, I think SR is a little out of date with Splott, there are some grim bits but its gentrified quite quickly.

Potted guide to rough Cardiff:

Butetown: not actually very big area, but has only rough tower blocks in Cardiff. Likelihood of getting mugged, good place to buy crack. Only area of Cardiff which has a significant black population (mainly long-standing Somali community).

Grangetown: Not nearly as bad as Liq was told, and some of it is actually very nice. Considerable Indian sub-continent migration (primary school near my house seems to be about 60% Asian) but all very respectable. There are grim bits to the north and west where it links to:

Riverside: lots of really horrible houses and general grim atmosphere, but not actually that much crime. Contains Card'ff's Chinatown (which is one street!)

Ely: estates, some nice, some incredibly rough. Worst place in Cardiff for heroin, joy-riding and general alienated white-working class youth crime.

Llanrhymney: see Ely, but if anything more violent.

Rhymney/St Mellons: some rough areas, some nice bits.

Wales roughest top 5 (that I've been to):
1 Rhyl
2 Port Talbot
3 Merthyr
4 Bargoed
5 Newport (particularly at weekends)

[Spearmint Rhino]

What's the roughest place in England?

Splott's the only place we ever got our car pelted with stones when driving through. (I was a kid and didn't have crazy hair so it can't be that, and the car was a shitty Fiat so it can't be that either.) When I revisited a while ago to go to the car-booter it didn't seem to have changed that much, but I'll take your word for it...

[meregreen]

What's the roughest place in England?

I've lived in Peckham for 12 years and it's not that bad. Depends which side of the Queens Road you live; north of it - heading towards Bermndsey/Millwall - and it's a bit lively, but south is a lovely oasis bordering on Peckham Rye and the completely gentrified East Dulwich. Also, there is a real sense of community here, something I've never experienced anywhere else in 20+years of living in London.

Having said that, my car got broken into the other night, the house was burgled a couple of years back and a couple of years before that I got mugged at knife point*. I just assume that this is pretty normal for an urban environment when you've lived there for 12 years. And for a genuinely rough city like like Liverpool, par for the course for a weekend.

I've never heard of a Peckham village, but the estate agents have succeeded in renaming our area Bellenden Village in a bid to lure the lure the East Dulwich overspill.

*Actually, this occurred on the Camberwell-Peckham borders.

[WOM]

What's the roughest place in England?

Wa ayat al Urbi wrote:

Is it really legendarily difficult? Cool.

Well, yeah. People on here have failed it three or four times as adults. Christ, you could show up drunk here and still pass with a few points to spare. I'd imagine your father in law has seen some charming driving in his day.

[sw2borshch]

What's the roughest place in England?

I imagine Bellenden Village would also appeal to those with a puerilke sense of humour who like the old Southern English plural.

[Gangster Octopus]

What's the roughest place in England?

A mate of mine was baffled when I started giggling when he told me he'd moved to Lancing...

[WOM]

What's the roughest place in England?

FYI: any time I google these places for a better look at the living hell in which their citizens live, I get the local tourism bureau's site. Of course, each place looks more charming and interesting than the last.

[radmonkey]

What's the roughest place in England?

I was just comparing it to my neighborhood and how it would rate in England. Personally I think it's alright, a little rough around the edges but that's why it's cheap.

But once you actually add up the major google hits on crime in the area, my neighborhood is actually pretty damn shitty.

There have been 12 murders in the last year, one of them around the block from me. the man killed his stepdaugther and stuffer her in the closet.
There's been 3 rapes in the last month so there's talk about a serial rapist prowling around.
The subway station had a group of thugs strongarming people for the their cell phones and iPods and cops didn't bother to inform anyone until after they arrested them.
Last summer some kids threw acid in a womans face and stole her purse. Because, I guess throwing gas on her and lighting her on fire would have been too much effort. Kids these days, tisk tisk.

Although it could be worse, cops tell me it was a real warzone about 15-20 years ago.