Old and new

Historic home: Norfolk. This is reckoned to be the UK's oldest privately owned house with a pedigree stretching back 700 years. Recent improvements have melded medieval and modern features, so there are flagstones, the remains of a medieval garderobe and a vaulted bedroom ceiling bearing an iron chandelier alongside a wet room, two en suites and a glamourised kitchen. Accommodation is capacious – four bedrooms and three receptions, all set amid large lawns in the village of Gissing. Yours for £675,000.
Fine, 01284767121 Photograph: Fine/Fine

Historic home: Kent. This £385,000 wedge of grade II-listed antiquity is a Tonbridge landmark guarding a quaint no-through lane to the parish church. The same family has owned it throughout living memory so it could do with a few modern graces inside, but its vintage charms are intact. The two receptions and three bedrooms are thickly beamed and an inglenook fireplace warms the sitting room. There's a small courtyard garden, but no parking.
Ibbett Mosely, 01732 770588 Photograph: Ibbett Mosely/Ibbett Mosely

New build: Devon. If you can muster the mortgage you can rejoice in free membership of the Dartmouth Golf and Country Club with its health spa, and the use of a fleet of motorised boats moored in a nearby creek. You'll also get a two- or three-bed cottage in a development grouped round a courtyard overlooking the championship golf course. Close by is the pretty estuary town of Dartmouth and the pastoral pleasures of Devon's South Hams. Prices start at £295,000.
Marchand Petit, 01803 839190 Photograph: Marchand Petit/Marchand Petit

New build: Essex. You can dispense with the tumble dryer and dangle your smalls from the drying beams which survive above the mezzanine area in this former Victorian laundry in Braintree. Now a two-bed home it once serviced an adjoining workhouse, now homes and offices. French doors merge the kitchen with the private courtyard which overlooks the communal gardens. It is close to the town centre where trains take an hour into London.
Old Saint Michaels, 01376 335800 Photograph: Old Saint Michaels/Old Saint Michaels

Bargain of the week: County Durham. The owners hope to have sold this petite lodge house by Christmas, hence the £145,000 price tag. This gets you two bedrooms, a reception room and a garage across the road. It once guarded Broomsheils Hall, the grounds of which spread picturesquely beyond it, and its own large gardens include a portion of woodland. It sits on the edge of the village of Satley, a 30-minute drive from Newcastle and Durham.
George F. White, 01388 527966 Photograph: George F. White/George F. White