Southwold

Southwold's high street is all independent shopfronts and beach-hut colours, the kind of place where the pace is set by dog walkers and pensioners rather than anyone in a hurry. Detached houses with pale render and painted railings dominate, and you'll notice quickly that the average person here is a good couple of decades older than in most English towns — the median age sits close to 65, more than twenty years above the national figure. This is not a place that hums with young families; it's a place people move to once the commuting years are behind them.

There's no rail station in the village itself, which tells you something important: this is a drive-in, drive-out sort of life, not a season-ticket one. Schooling is thin on the ground too — Southwold Primary School serves the village directly, while Reydon Primary School, rated Good, sits close enough to be the practical choice for most young families who do settle here. But with only one school actually in the village and a population that skews heavily older, the local demand for school places is modest, and the housing reflects that: detached freehold homes dominate the market, with a median sale price around £487,500, comfortably ahead of both the East Suffolk and national norms. A For Sale board here usually means an outright purchase by someone downsizing from a bigger house elsewhere, not a young couple stretching for their first mortgage — leasehold flats exist but they're the minority, tucked among the terraces and semis that make up the rest of the stock.