I've got family who live in a village near Peterborough, and all the streetlights are turned off after 11pm(to save energy, apparently). It gives an awe-inspiring view of the night sky, the likes of I'd never seen before.
If you travel faster than the speed of light are you travelling back in time. If so could those cave paintings of men in space suits actually be us from the future?
I'm not sure if there's anywhere you can go locally where you could try out a telescope, but there's some interesting info here. As you say it's difficult in most places because of light pollution - I often drive up onto the moors in clear conditions to see what I can see through binoculars. What Can You See With a Telescope - Deep Sky Watch
Wakefield and Huddersfield have good astro societies...very friendly, plus there's Mexborough. Best way of finding out more. If you are ok to travel Lime Tree Observatory near Ripon is excellent. They've just built themselves a nice planetarium too. Will say light pollution in and around Barnsley is as bad as I've ever seen it. True things look better up at Langsett, but even there the sky is being choked by white LED floodlighting. This kind of light pollution is entirely avoidable.
Not local but would definitely recommend a trip up to Kielder Observatory. Fantastic setup and huge area of dark skies so can see a lot.