Trading up, trading down

Trading up: Wiltshire.Don’t be misled by its dinky façade - this £550,000 barn near Shaftesbury conceals expansive glories. A slate tiled, underfloor heated dining room has been added to the sitting room and kitchen area to create a huge, sleek through-space opening on to large gardens. The current playroom can be recruited as a fifth bedroom if you don’t mind the occupants of the adjacent chamber commuting through it – or you could sling them out and convert their room into a second en suite. It sits on the edge of the village of Semley.
Jackson Stops & Staff, 01747 850858
Photograph: Jackson-stops & Staff

Trading up: North Yorkshire. This £395,000 house is close to the centre of Whitby, and you can walk to the sea for your morning dip. Accommodation is on a grand scale: six bedrooms, two attic rooms and three receptions with gardens front and back, as well as a detached garage.
Bairstow Eves, 01947 603433
Photograph: Bairstoweves

Trading down: Herefordshire. You can reduce your circumstances with swaggering grandeur with this Queen Anne manor house near Ledbury. A marbled fireplace, polished wooden floors, a palatially-sized drawing room and master bedroom with sash windows displaying the 12 acres of private parkland disguise the fact it's a three-bed flat. Your wine collection can be transferred to your share of the cellar and you have sole use of the building’s loft space. A patch of garden is reserved exclusively for you, but greater thrills lie in the communal kitchen gardens, orchard, lake and woodland. Cost: £310,000.
Knight Frank, 01432 273 087
Photograph: Knight Frank

Trading down: London. Your new life in miniature starts in the Rectory Fields conservation area of Blackheath, SE3. From this pretty side road it’s a straightforward trot to the grassy expanses of Greenwich Park and Blackheath, but there’s no need to stray so far for greenery - a leafy landscaped garden with pond opens off the kitchen. There is a 23ft characterful living room and three bedrooms. Yours for £329,000.
John Payne, 020 8858 6101
Photograph: John Payne

Dream home: Aberdeenshire. This is a real-life Scottish castle in Tullnessle, Alford, but it's so daintily sized that ordinary mortals can comfortably acclimatise in its four round bedrooms and two receptions. All the necessary ingredients are here: flagstoned floors, stone staircases, huge fireplaces and circular towers - and are all newly revamped. The 400-year-old building, home to a branch of the Gordon clan (the last of the family was captured by government troops in the grounds and hanged after the defeat at Culloden) was rescued from ruins in the 1980s. Woodland walks and sweeping lawns make up its 3.7 acres. Offers in excess of £595,000.
Knight Frank, 0131 222 9600 Photograph: Knight Frank