Snobbiest places in the UK

Albertina " We don't need help from a stupid looking thing like that !" How rude! It reminds me of trying to negotiate my eldest child’s pushchair out of a cafe. It was easiest to back out and pull it. As I made the pavement and looked up there was a woman in twin set and pearls just stood stock still. I apologised in case I’d caused her inconvenience and she snottily said, ‘It helps if you look where you are going’ and waltzed around us (on the wide pavement) with her tweed skirt swishing from side to side. I could only think she had been scouring the town looking for a reason to be unpleasant to someone!

Snobbishness is such an ugly trait to have.

I have laughed at some of these experiences you’ve described. I would agree that it’s people not places that can be snobbish. I can think of several examples that I have experienced but one of the worse places for people with ‘a bob on them’ in the 1970’s was the National Childbirth Trust. I can remember some very strange behaviour from some of those women. I had a professional career but these people appeared to me to be riding on their husband’s coat tails.. I would listen as they introduced themselves and it usually began with ‘I’m xxxx my husband is a solicitor/ GP/ Consultant/etc. I thought they had such low opinions of self that they had to hide behind their menfolk. So sad.

I was always called a snob growing up because I spoke "well" and lived in a large house in a very desirable part of town. However, I would argue that this was my parents' home and their constant nagging at me to speak nicely. Me? I got pregnant in my teens and married the mechanic father a few years later. As you can imagine... that went well!!

Edinburgh! Definately
My neighbour once told me she didn't like a Scottish suntan she liked to get hers in Italy?

I am a retired Chef, not how I started out it just sort of happened. Since I moved to Brussels more than 25 years ago I have put up with the most amazing snobs.
Brits who sit on their backsides in offices all day as assistants and then are very rude to me because I am 'just' a cook!!!
I tend now to ask them where they went to University, what did they study etc.
It is always Women, the Men never bother they accept my intelligence and conversation. One woman asked me where I grew up and when I told her she accused me of lying, 'a person like you never came from there'. I soon put her in her place and then discovered she was an Army brat, her Dad was a corporal.
I hate snobs.

Nana...not all of Islington was rough in 1974 ..I lived quite near Newington Green but in N5 and we were surrounded by decent people

People not places are snobby. I live near Harrogate, Ilkley, Boston Spa, all of which can be called snobby areas but there is a good mix of Yorkshire folk spread among the m so the snobs find it hard to remain too high and mighty as they are quickly knocked down!

I think making snobs squirm should become a sport!

By the way there is a brilliant old book by Jilly Cooper called "Class". A rundown of all the 'types' in the UK and how their behaviour differs and is alike.

According to her Upper Class and Working Class folk behave the same - loud in public, boisterous, gregarious, speak their mind, fart and burp loudly then laugh, drink at all hours of the day, slap people on the back, swear a lot, ask about your earnings, brag about things they buy and the price....the list goes on! It's very funny.

Of course it is the middle class who are the snobs - rising up from the working class to 'better themselves' and wishing to become included in the upper class (my mother used to call it 'having standards')

I suppose we hold differing opinions of what is snobby, so I will add my comment as where I would least fit in.

I would not like to live in these apartments built for retired people. No matter how lovely they look, no matter if in beautiful period properties with attractive surroundings, I think that anyone buying into this could end up being very lonely indeed.

I can imagine that the newbie would be surrounded by residents eager to discover their life history and anything interesting, then having had their fill, move on when another newbie appears. I do not have first hand experience, so I could be wrong.

I will have to refute that all those 'down South' are snobs! Not at all. It is obviously an individual character that portrays snobbishness, often, in my view, because they have a chip on their shoulder and secretly feel inferior. This could be anywhere in the country!

I think it may have been the Duchess of Windsor who said that only oneself could make one feel inferior - no one else could.

Although there are still subtle nuances that indicate background etc., and could be used in a 'snob-rating', these are far fewer than fifty years ago: society is far more egalitarian today.

In response to the OP, I can't think of anywhere that is 'snobby', people are people - some lovely, some horrible wherever they reside and it will be ever thus!

Can I just say to peasblossom (who has posted that Cambridge is snobby) that I was born in Cambridge, the daughter of a lowly fruit picker and shop floor worker at Pye's. Cambridge was, and still is, full of the normal cross section of humanity you would find in any city. Indeed some areas are socially deprived and we have our share of food banks etc. We also cheerfully welcomed 8 million tourists a year pre-Covid, to what is actually quite a small city, and were not in any way exclusive about sharing our beautiful surroundings with all comers from every corner of the planet. Cambridge of course has a university at the top of the league tables, but it also has a university very near the bottom and a large number of language schools open to international students from all walks of life. After living here for many decades I can vouch for the fact it is not snobby.

Yes, I should have said Centre of Cambridge rather than Cambridge. I apologise. It is quite rarified there and out of the price range of anyone ordinary.

Town and Gown?

When I was looking for accommodation in one the outlying towns where I could afford something, I was told, “You can’t go there it’s full of chavs.” ?

I don't think a place can be snobby, it's the people that live there that think they are a cut above that create the snobbiness. I don't have time for people who think they are above someone just because of where they live, it's usually inverted snobbery anyway.

Not Royston? Peasblossom <whispers> it isn't that bad is it?

No not Royston. You have the Caves. That’s class.

Tedd1

I was a mature student about to embark on a nursing degree at Oxford Brooks university. Having difficulty finding the place, I asked an older gentleman if hy could point me the way. He scratched his head and then he said to me “ oh you mean the polytechnic “. He obviously didn’t acknowledge where I was going as a proper university!!

A friend at school didn't get the A-level grades for university.
Instead he went to Oxford Brooks, when it was a Polytechnic in the 1970s.
He was a self-confessed snob, in the nicest possible way, and freely admitted that in years to come he would talk about his student days as, "When I was at Oxford..." ??

I had a friend years ago who looked and lived like a tramp: he wasn’t, he was a retired lieutenant colonel.
One day we went into a local shop ( small Essex village) for his tobacco. He didn’t have enough money on him and explained in his beautiful beautiful voice that he would drop it in tomorrow. No you won’t came the reply, tobacco was snatched back.
My dear friend had a thing about £50 notes, he loved them.
A few days later we went back to the shop and my friend asked the shop keeper if he had any 50s. Shop keeper tutts and asked how many he wanted, 3, says my friend, if you have them.
Shop keeper goes to the till and comes back with 3, 50 pence pieces. Meanwhile my friend had counted out £150 on the counter. Oh no, says my friend, I meant £50 notes.

When he died I was asked to identify his body by the local policeman. I told the policeman that he would have money on him. He looked at me as if I was speaking Urdu.
He had £600 on him. He asked if he had family, yes, he has a son who’s a barrister working in Hong Kong on the change over to China.
That shut them up.

That’s a poignant tale MerylStreep.
?

I don't know about the snobbiest because there are snobs everywhere. Some make Hyacinth Bouquet look mediocre!
Well, the least snobby and most friendly place I have been is Dawlish in Devon. Manners cost nothing and anyone who is snobby (condescending, rude or idiotic) doesn't get my repeat business, anyway. I am a great believer in Customer Service and not a fan of rudeness.

If someone is a snob and makes a judgement that they then use to discriminate against someone they might have made a wrong call and it's nasty- but what they have done is show you who they are. For that, we should appreciate them showing us who they ARE so we can avoid them in future!

I used to work with a lovely lady who disliked what she called "snobby people" This basically meant anyone who carried a broadsheet newspaper and used correct grammar. She would often come and ask me to "Serve this one, it's one of the snobby ones" Usually it would be some perfectly nice person who just spoke well.

It’s true that the people rather than the places are often snobbish, but you tend to remember the place where you met them as well as the behaviour.

While in China, twenty odd years ago, I lived in a block of appartements for foreigners, another family had their Chinese cleaner/cook dress in a black dress and white apron. The other Chinese workers thought they were rich. We were only expats.

A large bouquet was sent jointly from Partners and staff to another Partner for an occasion. Two thank you letters were sent back, one to the employees “the flowers look beautiful in the sitting room”. To the Partners the same except they looked beautiful in the drawing room!

Terribull. Your story of the car ‘letting down the neighbourhood’ reminded me of something that happened in Bibury, in the Cotswolds, a few years ago.
The village is, apparently, very picturesque, and visited and photographed by tourists. One elderly resident bought a yellow car, which immediately attracted hate messages. It was also vandalised. Many of the locals thought that it was an eyesore, spoiling peoples’ photographs. The owner refused to get rid of it, and someone mentioned it on social media.
The owners of yellow cars from all over the U.K. drove there in protest and support, and it was reported on the BBC news.
I don’t know what the outcome was, but Bibury residents definitely qualify as snobby

Don't know about places but I have a sister who is a snob. People have asked me how we were brought up in the same home, we are so different. She puts on airs and graces along with 'the voice' when talking to people, she has racist views, is homophobic, when I married a guy from Antigua she told my daughter not to let her teenage son and daughter see the wedding photos as she said 'I don't want then to know my sister has married a black man, it's disgusting '. Needless to say I don't see her or talk to her at all.