Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Photo: Stacey Harris · CC BY-SA 2.0The High Weald National Landscape reaches the edge of Leigh. Parks and playing fields in Leigh add up to 3.0 ha for every 1,000 residents; the typical UK town has 2.1. 24 km of footpaths run through the village and the kilometre around it, 2.6 for every square kilometre. Leigh grades A for the outdoors. A character grade: it isn’t part of the overall grade.
Read from the data: what stands out first, good and bad.
Leigh’s strongest suit is parks close to every home, followed by protected countryside on the doorstep.
Each chart is every UK town of 1,000 or more on one measure: the green bar is Leigh, the dashed line the typical town. The number is the share of towns it beats; the five are averaged and the average ranked again.
Graded, never part of the overall grade (like History and Civic life). It measures what is mapped: OS Open Greenspace leaves out woodland and open-access land that isn’t a park, and OpenStreetMap’s rural paths are more complete in some places than others.
The 60 UK towns and cities of 1,000 to 1,200 people with an Outdoors Grade. Hover a dot for its figures; tap one for its page.
Against villages its size, Leigh stands out most for homes near a park: none of the other 59 has more.
| Town | Outdoors | Green space | Near a park | Path per km² | Protected | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Illogan Cornwall | A+ | 3 | 100% | 3.2 | 7% |
| 2 | Polgooth Cornwall | A+ | 7 | 100% | 2 | 13% |
| 3 | Fairlands Surrey | A+ | 2.8 | 100% | 5 | 11% |
| 4 | Chagford Devon | A+ | 4.7 | 100% | 2.5 | 98% |
| 5 | Masham North Yorkshire | A+ | 3.7 | 100% | 3 | 44% |
| 6 | Tolvaddon Cornwall | A | 11.9 | 24% | 4.5 | 9% |
| 7 | Ditchling East Sussex | A | 7.4 | 77% | 4 | 57% |
| 8 | Leigh Kent | A | 3 | 100% | 2.6 | 49% |
| 9 | Moston Cheshire | A | 7.8 | 100% | 3.8 | 0% |
| 10 | Charnock Richard Lancashire | A | 29.8 | 100% | 3.3 | 0% |
| 11 | Barns Green West Sussex | A | 6.6 | 100% | 3.5 | 0% |
| 12 | Horsted Keynes West Sussex | A− | 2.2 | 100% | 2.3 | 83% |
| 13 | Mayfield Staffordshire | A− | 1.9 | 100% | 3.3 | 14% |
| 14 | Grange Moor West Yorkshire | A− | 4.3 | 100% | 2.8 | 0% |
| 15 | Llanddulas Clwyd | B+ | 1.7 | 100% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 16 | North Thoresby Lincolnshire | B+ | 3.7 | 100% | 0.8 | 21% |
| 17 | Bethel Gwynedd | B+ | 1.6 | 100% | 1.4 | 10% |
| 18 | Grassington North Yorkshire | B+ | 1.3 | 79% | 4.1 | 100% |
| 19 | South Bents Tyne and Wear | B+ | 4.9 | 62% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 20 | Borth Dyfed | B | 3.1 | 74% | 1.2 | 0% |
| 21 | Upperthong West Yorkshire | B | 1.7 | 65% | 4.7 | 26% |
| 22 | Cropston Leicestershire | B | 3.1 | 100% | 2.2 | 0% |
| 23 | Barwick and Stoford Somerset | B | 6.4 | 71% | 2.2 | 5% |
| 24 | Jacobs Well Surrey | B | 1.4 | 77% | 4.7 | 8% |
| 25 | Milborne St Andrew Dorset | B | 3.3 | 71% | 2.1 | 33% |
| 26 | Bedlinog Mid Glamorgan | B | 4.1 | 100% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 27 | Goudhurst Kent | B | 1.5 | 100% | 1.2 | 65% |
| 28 | Challock Kent | B− | 3 | 62% | 2 | 88% |
| 29 | Shipham Somerset | B− | 1.2 | 63% | 4 | 55% |
| 30 | Harpur Hill Derbyshire | B− | 3.1 | 31% | 2.3 | 60% |
| 31 | Roydon (South Norfolk) Norfolk | B− | 4.3 | 50% | 4 | 0% |
| 32 | Beaumaris Gwynedd | B− | 2.7 | 30% | 0.8 | 18% |
| 33 | Beeford East Riding of Yorkshire | C+ | 3.9 | 100% | 0.4 | 0% |
| 34 | Easton on the Hill Northamptonshire | C+ | 2.5 | 100% | 1.7 | 0% |
| 35 | Castlethorpe Buckinghamshire | C+ | 3.5 | 72% | 2.9 | 0% |
| 36 | Whimple Devon | C+ | 5.2 | 70% | 0.9 | 1% |
| 37 | Brinklow Warwickshire | C+ | 1.7 | 100% | 2 | 0% |
| 38 | Lower Shiplake Oxfordshire | C+ | 3 | 0% | 2 | 28% |
| 39 | Ashchurch Gloucestershire | C | 2 | 59% | 2.2 | 21% |
| 40 | Bow Street Dyfed | C | 3.1 | 33% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 41 | Woodhouses Greater Manchester | C | 2.6 | 40% | 3.5 | 0% |
| 42 | Bow Devon | C | 1.9 | 100% | 1.1 | 0% |
| 43 | Baldwin's Gate Staffordshire | C− | 1.3 | 100% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 44 | Glazebury Cheshire | C− | 5.1 | 58% | 1.5 | 0% |
| 45 | Milverton Somerset | C− | 2.1 | 70% | 2.4 | 0% |
| 46 | Beachley Gloucestershire | C− | 0.3 | 0% | 1.2 | 14% |
| 47 | Bildeston Suffolk | C− | 0.5 | 100% | 1.3 | 0% |
| 48 | Farmborough Somerset | C− | 2 | 38% | 2.6 | 0% |
| 49 | Cawston Norfolk | D | 2.7 | 71% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 50 | Broad Oak (Wealden) East Sussex | D | 0.1 | 0% | 1.4 | 96% |
| 51 | Wattstown Mid Glamorgan | D | 3.1 | 26% | 0.8 | 0% |
| 52 | Landrake Cornwall | D | 0.9 | 0% | 0.6 | 38% |
| 53 | Reawla Cornwall | D | 0.2 | 0% | 2 | 3% |
| 54 | Stickney Lincolnshire | D | 2.4 | 0% | 1 | 0% |
| 55 | Berryfield Wiltshire | D− | 0.4 | 53% | 2.1 | 0% |
| 56 | Pilton Somerset | D− | 1.2 | 28% | 1.9 | 0% |
| 57 | Moulton Chapel Lincolnshire | D− | 1.5 | 60% | 0 | 0% |
| 58 | Llanfyllin Powys | D− | 0 | 0% | 1.6 | 0% |
| 59 | Great Horwood Buckinghamshire | D− | 0.8 | 0% | 1 | 0% |
| 60 | Whaplode Lincolnshire | D− | 0.4 | 0% | 0.2 | 0% |
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it. The dashed line is Leigh’s built-up area.
The biggest is Haysden Country Park, 77 ha (190 acres). Directions go to the park’s nearest public entrance where Ordnance Survey maps one.
Each square is 1 in 100 residents: green lives within 400 m of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace).
Playing fields count, so a park within reach isn’t always one with paths or trees.
Protected landscapes within 30 km, by direction and distance from the edge of the built-up area; circle size shows each one’s area. National Landscapes were called Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty until 2023.
49% of the land within 5 km of Leigh is National Park or National Landscape, more than 91% of UK towns.
24 km of footpaths, bridleways and rights of way are mapped in Leigh and the kilometre around it, 2.6 km for every square kilometre (the typical UK town has 3.0). Bars show each route’s kilometres within 2 km of the village.
Close to home, the Eden Valley Walk has 6 km of local walk within 2 km of the village. The regional route here is the Wealdway.
Waymarked walks are OpenStreetMap walking routes. Public rights of way are only as complete as the map in each area.
Historic England’s register of parks and gardens, and the listed buildings and scheduled monuments that stand inside Leigh’s named parks.
A listed building or monument counts when it sits inside the park’s OS Open Greenspace outline (to about 15 m), so a few at the boundary are included. Historic England, National Heritage List for England.
The village’s 1991–2020 averages (Met Office HadUK-Grid) and the daylight at its latitude. Outlined months have 12½+ hours of daylight, highs of 15 °C or more and little rain for the town.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daylight (h) | 8.4 | 9.9 | 11.7 | 13.8 | 15.5 | 16.5 | 16.1 | 14.6 | 12.5 | 10.6 | 8.8 | 7.9 |
| High (°C) | 8 | 8 | 11 | 14 | 17 | 20 | 23 | 22 | 19 | 15 | 11 | 8 |
| Rain (mm) | 76 | 57 | 47 | 46 | 48 | 47 | 46 | 47 | 50 | 76 | 80 | 79 |
July is the driest month (46 mm) and the warmest (highs of 23 °C). Winter days are short, about 8 hours of daylight in December, and 80 mm of rain falls in November, the wettest month. Frost comes on about 51 nights a year. The climate in Leigh →
Mapped within 2 km of the village in OpenStreetMap, against the typical UK village its size per resident. Named places are listed with directions; unnamed ones are only counted.
Leigh is inland. These are the nearest named beaches, measured from the edge of the village.
Check the water before you swim. The Environment Agency tests designated bathing waters from May to September and publishes a rating for each beach.
Plus 1 campsite without a name on the map.
The nearest towns of 1,000+ within 12 miles. Tap a town for its outdoors page.
| Town | Outdoors | Green space, ha per 1,000 | Near a park | Protected within 5 km |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leigh | A | 3.0 | 100% | 49% |
| Hildenborough 1.8 mi | B+ | 6.5 | 40% | 46% |
| Tonbridge 2.7 mi | B− | 2.1 | 65% | 38% |
| Southborough 3.3 mi | A− | 2.8 | 94% | 57% |
| Rusthall and Langton Green 4.3 mi | B | 2.1 | 69% | 79% |
| Royal Tunbridge Wells 4.7 mi | A− | 2.2 | 93% | 73% |
| Hadlow 5.6 mi | C− | 1.7 | 61% | 11% |
Leigh grades higher for the outdoors than every neighbour in the table. Hildenborough has at least twice Leigh’s green space per resident.
Haysden Country Park, 77 ha (190 acres), with 6.9 km of path, just outside the built-up area. The Green Cricket Ground (1.8 ha) is second. 2 named parks, gardens and playing fields are in the village or within 400 m of it.
It covers 1,462 km² and was designated in 1983.
2 waymarked walking routes pass within 2 km of the village, including the Eden Valley Walk and Wealdway. Haysden Country Park alone has 6.9 km of path.
The Beach, 18 mi from the edge of the village, then Northfleet Beach (19 mi). Leigh itself is inland.
100% of residents live within 400 m, about a 5-minute walk, of a public park, garden or playing field (Census 2021 output areas against OS Open Greenspace). The typical UK town is 83%.
May to September: the longest days, the warmest afternoons and the least rain of the year, from the Met Office 1991–2020 averages.
Hall Place (Grade II*) is on Historic England’s register of parks and gardens.
About average for paths: 2.6 km of footpath and right of way per square kilometre, more than 48% of UK towns. For park space per person it beats 70% (3.0 ha per 1,000 residents).
From five measures, each placed among UK towns of 1,000 or more: public green space per resident, the share living near a park, National Park or National Landscape within 5 km, footpaths per square kilometre, and the sea within 5 km. It is a character grade and isn’t part of Leigh’s overall grade.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Contains HM Land Registry data © Crown copyright and database right 2026. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026 (ONS boundaries). Northern Ireland: Source: NISRA; contains Land & Property Services data and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland information, © Crown copyright, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Scotland: contains National Records of Scotland data, Registers of Scotland data and SEPA data, © Crown copyright / © SEPA 2025, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.