Selkirk still reads as a working Borders town rather than a commuter dormitory: solid stone terraces on the hill down to the Ettrick Water, a compact high street, and a population whose median age sits close to fifty-two — a good decade older than the Scotland-wide average. This is a place people settle into rather than pass through, and the streetscape says so: unhurried, practical, more ironmonger than boutique. The grade pattern here is the real story. Environment and safety both come back well above the Scottish average, and connectivity and health sit comfortably above the norm too — this is not a place slipping quietly by. The one grade that breaks the pattern is housing, marked down against everything around it, which is worth sitting with rather than skating past. It's not that homes are expensive — a median price of £183,147 is modest by any national reading — it's more likely a comment on the age and type of stock available, something worth checking street by street rather than assuming from the average. Council tax at Band D runs a little above both the regional and national medians, a small but real monthly difference against what the property price alone would suggest. Day to day, Selkirk works at village scale: twenty hectares spread across twenty-seven green spaces means there's always somewhere close to walk the dog or let a kid loose, and that abundance of small green pockets is doing real work for the environment grade. Full-fibre broadband reaching over two-thirds of the area is a genuine surprise for a village this size, and it matters if you're weighing remote work against the practicalities of rural Borders life. Three schools serve the immediate area, which is enough for local family life without offering the constant choice a town would. Health provision reads as solidly above average rather than exceptional, which for most day-to-day needs is exactly the reassurance you want. Who ends up here tends to be people who've already decided that pace matters more than proximity — the median age tells you that story on its own. It suits those wanting safety and outdoor access as the daily backdrop, comfortable with a modest, older housing stock rather than new-build choice, and unbothered by trading big-town amenity for a settled, established community. If what you need is variety of nightlife or fast-churn property choice, Selkirk will feel quiet in the wrong way; if what you want is a secure, green, well-connected small Borders base, it delivers exactly what its grades promise.