Penmaenmawr

Terraced stone cottages climb the hillside here in rows, the sort of streetscape that tells you this was a quarrying village before it was anything else, and the sea and the mountain both sit close enough that you never forget which way is which. It's a small place — you'll notice the same faces at the station, in the one shop queue, on the coast path — and the population figure of 441 barely does justice to how contained it feels. Retirees and long-established families dominate the visible life of the village more than young professionals, and the median age of 44 backs that impression up without needing to labour it.

The practical spine of the place is Penmaenmawr Rail Station, sitting right in the village, which puts you on the coastal line without a car — a genuine asset if you work in Llandudno or Bangor and want the sea view on the commute rather than a ring road. Schooling is a single-option picture: Ysgol Pencae, a voluntary aided primary with 155 pupils, is the local school of record, and there's no secondary in the village itself, so families tend to plan around that from the outset. Housing here is overwhelmingly terraced and freehold — twenty of the twenty-three recent sales were freehold, and terraces outnumbered every other type combined — which means a For Sale board on most streets is advertising a two-up two-down with genuine walls and a genuine roof, not a share of a management company. Prices reflect that character too: a median around £165,000 sits some 20% below the wider Conwy county figure, and well under the Welsh average house price, so the affordability grade here earns its B honestly.