What’s going for it? Was it the charming assistant at Hennings wine merchants? The shelf-stacker in the topographical section at the bookshop? I’m still hunting for Colonel Mustard and Professor Plum, but there are plenty of plummy-voiced antiques dealers in these towns to go on my list of suspects; let alone the rum fellows I imagine conduct their affairs behind the high walls of the illustrious stately home that run through Petworth like the Berlin Wall. These neighbouring towns are straight out of central casting for Miss Marple: tile-covered cottages, porches draped in roses, enough wisteria to fill the Albert Hall and I swear I glimpsed the reincarnation of Joan Hickson (still the definitive Jane for me), picking up a korma in Meghdoot’s (“Authentic Indian Cuisine Since 1950”). Petworth lives in the shadow of The House and its Titians and Turners. Having the railway station, though, Pulborough is the more worldly of the two, the kind of place I imagine lived in, in Agatha Christie’s day, by brassy secretaries with a taste for jazz and romantic dalliances with aged wealthy widowers who should know better.
The case against Expensive. But you expected that, didn’t you? Too lovely for their own good. Coach parties. The looming walls of the house do rather make one feel like a peasant.
Well connected? Trains: half-hourly to Horsham (16 minutes) and Bognor Regis, to change for Chichester one way and Brighton the other; Gatwick (42 minutes) and London Victoria (76). Driving: 15 to the A27, 25 to the coast, 45 to Gatwick.
Schools Primaries: St Mary’s CofE and Fittleworth CofE are “good”, Ofsted says. Secondaries: the “outstanding” Weald and Midhurst Rother College.
Hang out at… Agatha Christie would approve of the Angel in Petworth, with its inglenooks, medieval floorboards and characterful locals (all potential suspects).
Where to buy Wisteria-ed stone cottages, Georgian town houses, 18th-century farmhouses, mills, lots of estates with land and gabled old houses that have seen a thing or two in their time. You won’t want for beautiful property here. At a price. Large detacheds and town houses, £700,000-£2.5m. Detacheds and smaller town houses, £400,000-£700,000. Semis, £275,000-£500,000. Terraces and cottages, £250,000-£400,000. Rentals: a few; three-bed house, £1,150-£2,000pcm.
Bargain of the week If you can call it that. A delightful, 10-bedroom former railway station in Petworth; £1.4m with Chesworths (I know; but I couldn’t resist).
From the streets
Helen Dobson “Hang out at the RSPB’s Pulborough Brooks nature reserve: a well-stocked shop and a cafe with tables overlooking the reserve and the Arun Valley.”
Sue Goddard “As well as Petworth House, visit Parham House and gardens, near Storrington, one of the country’s finest Elizabethan manors.”
• Do you live in Petworth and Pulborough? Join the debate below
Do you live in Blaenavon, Gwent? Do you have a favourite haunt or a pet hate? If so, email lets.move@theguardian.com by Tuesday 28 March.
