Kingston upon Thames

Kingston's high street mixes chain retail with the kind of independent cafes and riverside pubs that suggest money without shouting about it, and the crowd you'll see reflects that: young professionals, families pushing buggies past estate agents, students drifting toward the university buildings. It's dense for a London town — noticeably more people packed into each square kilometre than the regional average — but it doesn't feel like it, because so much of the space is given over to green.

For getting around, ten rail stations serve the wider area, with Tolworth Station the closest and Berrylands and Malden Manor also in the mix — this is a place built for commuters who want a front door in London but a season ticket into it. Schools are the real headline here: an overall grade well above the national average, anchored by Richard Challoner School and Tolworth Infant and Nursery School, both rated Outstanding, and a strong average progress score across the borough's 64 schools. A family settling near one of these catchments, with a rail link within reach, is a familiar Kingston story. Housing tells a slightly different tale — the median price sits close to £530,000, essentially level with the wider borough and in line with regional norms, but that masks real range: flats (the dominant property type, and mostly freehold rather than leasehold, which is unusual and worth noting on any listing) trade around £360,000, while detached houses push toward £880,000. The market has been flat rather than rising over the past year, so anyone buying isn't chasing momentum.