Lindfield, West Sussex has been named the best place to live in the southeast of England in the annual Sunday Times Best Places to Live guide.
Lindfield is a beautiful village with enough reliable schools, smart shops, amenities and connections to satisfy the most hard-headed househunter. But it’s just as perfect for more romantic souls, ready to be bewitched by the duck pond, the enviable period homes, the warm and welcoming community and the Sussex countryside.
The little high street is useful and aspirational, but the star of the show is the Lindfield Coffee Works, a buzzy roastery and café that is always packed with locals of all ages. In the evenings, the crowds move to the Stand Up Inn for games of Toad-in-the-hole, a traditional Sussex coin-tossing game.
Ten other locations in the southeast are featured in the comprehensive guide. In total, 72 places across the UK were selected by The Sunday Times to showcase the best of Britain, with Norwich, Norfolk named the overall national winner. The guide will be published online on Friday 20 March, with an abridged version appearing as a magazine supplement on Sunday 22nd.
The full list of southeast locations is:
- Lindfield, West Sussex
- Amersham, Buckinghamshire
- Caversham, Reading
- Cookham, Berkshire
- Deal, Kent
- Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire
- Petworth, West Sussex
- Petersfield, Hampshire
- St Leonards, East Sussex
- Surrey Hills
- Test Valley, Hampshire
Please note: apart from the winners, they are not ranked but published in alphabetical order.
Helen Davies, editorial projects director and Best Places to Live editor, says: “This guide is a great opportunity to highlight the best places in Britain. It is full of places that show that our village, town and city centres can still be full of life, as well as places bursting with natural beauty, culture, connectivity and most importantly a sense of community.
Our expert team of judges visit every location on the list and talk to the locals to find out what they love about the place they live. These judges have traveled the length and breadth of the UK, from the Scottish Highlands to the Cornish coast, selecting the top towns and villages, suburbs and cities for the 2026 guide. One thing all our chosen locations have in common is that the people who live in them are proud to call them home.”
The Sunday Times’s expert judges have visited all the locations and assessed factors from schools to transport, broadband speeds and mobile signal to amenities, as well as access to high-quality green spaces and the health of the high street.
The chosen locations come in all shapes and sizes, from the best bits of big lively cities such as Leeds, Liverpool, Glasgow, Cardiff and London to the tiny, rural villages of the Vale of Eden in Cumbria and the Vale of Belvoir in the Midlands. The whole country is covered, from Falmouth and Penryn in west Cornwall to Braemar in the Scottish Highlands and Ballycastle in Northern Ireland.
There are more new entries than ever before in this year’s guide. As always, the judges looked for thriving locations with a strong sense of community rather than famous names with high house prices.
The guide has been sponsored by the mortgage lender Lloyds Banking Group for the first time this year, which has provided an average house price for each location.
“For many, navigating the housing market can feel overwhelming,” says Kate Townson, Lloyds relationship and customer development director. “At Lloyds, our aim is to support all home buyers, including those taking their very first step onto the property ladder, with clear guidance, practical tools and tailored products that help them move forward with confidence and clarity.
“Our partnership with The Sunday Times Best Places to Live aims to give trusted insight into communities across the UK, helping homebuyers to make confident, informed decisions about their future home, ” Townson added.
Broadband speeds were provided by Thinkbroadband.com, the UK’s leading independent guide to broadband. We’ve also included mobile signal coverage, using network data from Signal Checker.
Pen portraits of the southeast locations from the Sunday Times judges
Amersham, Buckinghamshire
Amersham has all the right dynamics: heritage, high-powered grammar schools, lovely Chiltern Hills countryside, a choice of independent places to eat and excellent transport links. It also has a civic-minded community and an impressive musical pedigree, showcased in the annual Amersham Festival of Music. The festival relies on volunteers, who also keep community life ticking over through a programme which includes the Amersham Museum, active Scout and Guide groups and the very active Amersham in Bloom.
Caversham, Berks
Quiet riverside town or bustling modern metropolis? In Caversham you get both. Reading 0 with its jobs at multinational HQs, lightning-fast links to London and a rich cultural offering – is within easy walking distance, but Caversham’s streets are lined with elegant Victorian and Edwardian houses, not hulking office blocks, and residents can unwind with a walk in the Chilterns or a boat trip along the Thames.
Cookham, Berks
Anyone moving to this aspirational Thames-side spot needs to be prepared to dig deep and pay the property premium. In return, they get a life surrounded by natural beauty, a choice of aspirational schools and the chance to join one of the many local clubs – arts, sailing, golf and cricket, to name a few.
Deal, Kent
Deal is at its salty best in autumn when the summer holiday crowds depart, the cosy pubs light their fires and the candyfloss-coloured houses pop against moody skies. The CT14 postcode is catnip to creatives, helped by fast rail connections to London and its cool credentials are rising like the tide. Yet this coastal town still has proper old-fashioned charm with traditional boozers and friendly locals who will stop and chat about what the anglers are landing off the starkly beautiful brutalist pier.
Milton Keynes, Bucks
To its early detractors, Milton Keynes was branded ugly and soulless, mocked for its roundabouts and concrete cows. Yet this city is now being recognised for its ambition, innovation, good transport connections, cultural diversity and abundance of greenery.
Milton Keynes is fast becoming a cultural heavyweight, too. Art is everywhere and there’s a huge range of sporting options, too. There’s indoor skydiving and skiing (on real snow) at Xscape but the real stars are the lakes, rivers and canals, as well as more than 6,000 acres of parks, such as Campbell Park and the watersports wonderland that is Willen Lake.
Petersfield, Hampshire
This pretty market town has a close-knit community that really gets stuck in, helping run everything from the serene Physic Garden to the popular Petersfield Open Air Pool. The South Downs offer no end of options for hikes and bike rides and there are gentler strolls to be had on the heath and around its enormous pond. Education is a strong point,with a great choice of good state primaries, nine of which have got together with the outstanding-rated secondary, the Petersfield School (TPS), to go smartphone-free.
Petworth, West Sussex
Petworth is the perfect place to unplug and reconnect with the real world – if you have the budget. Surrounded by the beauty of the South Downs and with the majestic Petworth House, one of Britain’s finest stately homes, as a backdrop, its cobbled streets, wisteria-clad cottages, town crier and trove of antique shops recall a bygone era. There’s a caring community and a thriving selection of independent shops and a strong cultural scene.
St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex
Shabby enough to be jolly and chic enough to turn heads, St Lens isn’t just the acceptable face of Hastings, it’s the acceptable face of seaside gentrification. Thanks to eye-catching architecture and quietly fashionable wine bars, restaurants, boutiques and interior shops, and in the Kino-Teatr, a super-cool cinema and gallery arts centre, it has managed to up-and-come without losing its seaside soul.
The Surrey Hills
The affluent towns and charming villages in this leafy, lovely 163 square miles of splendid scenery feel a world away from Surrey’s (sub)urban grind. There are ancient woodlands, rushing rivers and far-reaching views from Leith Hill or Box Hill. The area is dotted with powerhouse schools, both state and private, and there are useful rail connections to London.
The Test Valley
The river and the 250 square miles of grasslands, ancient woodlands and wetlands that make up this valley in northwest Hampshire have an appeal that extends far beyond rods and reels. As well as the glorious countryside immortalised in Richard Adams’s classic Watership Down, there are chocolate-box villages with lively communities, cosy pubs, shops and restaurants that sell excellent local produce, and a burgeoning arts scene. The river is at the heart of the appeal, so much so that Test Valley borough council has granted it “personhood”, to deter polluting water companies.
For more information, visit The Sunday Times website.
