Let’s move to Steyning, West Sussex

What’s going for it? Brighton is so, like, over. 2016 is all about Steyning. OK, not all about Steyning. But a bit. Small market towns are where most people want to live these days, and are happiest, said so-and-so’s report the other week. I can believe it. I quite understand why you moved to Brighton. Escape the rat race. Images of nightly cocktails on the beach jiggering to Fatboy Slim. But face facts: a time comes in most people’s lives when they can’t be arsed paying oligarch’s rates for the privilege of lively living, aka slipping the baby-buggy through a tide of pavement sick, dodging hen parties and the waft of doughnut fat. When you reach that point, may I recommend Steyning? One of those delightful towns (Arundel, Lewes, et al) over the hump of the South Downs, all snuggly with its ruined Bramber Castle, hunched parish church, knobby flint cottages and half timbers, bookshops and tales of former glory in the 12th century. It’s not as debauched as Brighton (though, like most of Sussex, Steyning has its tales of avant-garde shenanigans), but there’s only time for so much debauchery if you’re up all night on nappy duty.

The case against The quiet life. While cheaper than Brighton, it isn’t, um, cheap.

Well connected? Trains: Shoreham, five miles away, has services to Brighton (16 minutes, two an hour) and Chichester (40 minutes, twice hourly); or drive to Burgess Hill for several trains an hour to Blackfriars, Victoria and St Pancras (50-60 minutes). Driving: 10 minutes to Shoreham, 30 to Brighton.

Schools Primaries: Steyning CofE is “good”, Ofsted says, Upper Beeding “outstanding”. Secondaries: Steyning Grammar is “good”, too.

Hang out at… The Sussex Produce Company, a restaurant-cum-greengrocer, if you’re missing Brighton. The Steyning Tea Rooms if you’re not.

Where to buy You name the period, there’s a house here: medieval hall houses with inglenooks, Georgian rectories, thatch, flint, modern. Start with the winding old streets in the centre: High Street and, especially, Church Street and Vicarage Lane. Replicated in miniature in Bramber, where the port once was, and across the Adur the riverside village of Upper Beeding. Detacheds and town houses, £400,000-£1m. Semis, £275,000-£750,000. Terraces and cottages, £250,000-£400,000. Flats, £130,000-£250,000. Little for rent: a four-bed house might be £1,300pcm.

Bargain of the week Three-bed 1960s semi, needing updating. Not picture-postcard, but good value at £345,000, kingandchasemore.co.uk.

From the streets

Patta Tolputt “Steyning Butchers is second to none. Can’t find a better coffee than at Stan’s Bike Shack.”

Robin Milner-Gulland “A town for 1,000 years (not to be labelled a village!), with the best medieval houses in Sussex. Splendid walks on the Downs.”

Calum Chace “A lively community of writers, artists and other creative people.”