Trading up, trading down – in pictures

Trading up: Cumbria. £310,000 allows you to live lavishly in the village of Newton Arlosh, near Wigton, partly because the décor is slightly dated. There are four receptions, three bedrooms and a scattering of outbuildings – including a two-storey barn – within this old farmstead next to the village church. The trouble is a bungalow was built in the grounds for grandma, so unless you can muster another £165,000 to buy that too, you’ll have a stranger living at the bottom of the garden.
H&H King, 01228 810799
Photograph: H&H King

Trading up: London. The Georgian graces of you and your neighbours are enshrined in a £550,000 Grade II listing, so modernity can’t sully this handsome corner of Peckham, SE15. In fact, past the picket fence you’d scarcely know you were in south-east London. The double-fronted façade has more of an air of a village rectory, while a mature tree screens most of your neighbours in the back garden. Intervening centuries have extended the back to provide four bedrooms, two receptions, a study and a marble-tiled dining kitchen, but have respected the Regency fireplaces and original wooden floors and staircase.
Wooster & Stock, 020 7708 6700
Photograph: Wooster & Stock

Trading down: Edinburgh. Stockbridge, a park’s-width away from the botanical gardens and half-a-mile from the city’s West End, still preserves its village atmosphere. This one-bed flat in a no-through lane beside the old market arch has been lavishly appointed with kitchen shelves made of salvaged church pews, stone work tops, wooden floors, working shutters and a cast-iron roll top bath. You’ll be on intimate terms with any guests since an open arch separates the bathroom from the sleeping quarters. You share a communal garden with your neighbours, but any car will have to be left in adjacent streets with a permit. Offers over £185,000 will be considered.
Knight Frank, 0131 222 9600
Photograph: Knight Frank

Trading down: Devon. The village coastguard once lived here and could keep an eye on Challaborough’s sandy beach and the sea a couple of hundred metres from the front windows. Pretty on the outside, this cottage hasn’t kept pace with the times within. About £30,000 would reclaim it handsomely and leave you with two bedrooms – one very daintily sized – and a spacious living room with French windows absorbing the sea views. Most of the garden is to the front, but there’s scope for a utility room in the rear outhouse-cum-lav. Yours for £179,950.
Marchand Petit, 01548 831163
Photograph: Marchand Petit

Bargain of the week: Essex. For those possessed of tunnel vision, this is a 16th-century idyll in Clacton-on-Sea. For £545,000 you get four receptions – all heavily beamed, trussed or inglenooked – six bedrooms, a six-bay cart lodge that could be converted for household overspill, and a three-bed bungalow in need of cosmetic rescue. The rub is that all of its land bar two acres has been sold off for development, so it sits amid a modern housing estate. Were it to be transplanted to the countryside its size, antiquity and graceful fittings would command nearly twice the price, so a few hundred near-neighbours may be worth tolerating.
Fenn Wright, 01206 763 388
Photograph: Fenn Wright