Cranbrook has been named among the UK’s best places to live for 2027, with a national guide calling it “a handsome little market town in the heart of the High Weald”.

The Weald town was included in Muddy Stilettos’ list of the UK’s Top 260 Best Places to Live, published at the end of October.

Published annually, the guide picks out the best places to live in each county and looks at what they offer, from schools, commuting and house prices to where to eat, shop and spend a weekend.

Cranbrook is one of eight places in Kent to make the list, alongside Tunbridge Wells, Sevenoaks, Penshurst, Marden, Wye, Oare and Sandgate.

Why Cranbrook made the list

“Chocolate-box looks without the tourist swarms,” the guide says.

It praises the town’s “weatherboarded houses, winding streets, indie shops and its landmark white windmill watching over proceedings”.

It adds: “But there’s substance behind the prettiness: excellent schools, a strong community, proper local shops and cafés, glorious countryside in every direction and fast links to London.”

The guide’s “best kept secret” is Union Mill, which it calls “England’s tallest working smock mill, built in 1814”.

The mill can be climbed on selected open days, and “entry is free, views are cracking, donations welcome”, according to the guide.

The big draw for families, it says, is Cranbrook School, “one of the country’s few co-ed state grammar schools offering boarding”.

Green heritage plaque for Cranbrook School on a brick wall
Cranbrook School. Photo: Cranbrook School by Simon Harriyott (CC BY 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

“The education is free for boarders as well as day pupils,” the guide says, with boarding families paying £17,577 a year for accommodation and living costs in Years 9 to 11.

On the town’s food, the guide says Cranbrook “punches well above its small-town weight”, naming Willow & Sage for brunch, Kypseli on Stone Street and Larkins’ Alehouse, “Cranbrook’s original micropub”.

Weatherboarded shops along Stone Street in Cranbrook
Stone Street, Cranbrook. Photo: Stone Street, Cranbrook by Chris Whippet (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

How much it costs to live in Cranbrook

The average house price in Cranbrook over the last year was £528,927, according to the guide.

Detached homes averaged £729,983, semi-detached homes £482,148 and terraced homes £357,650.

There is no station in the town, so commuters “generally drive around 10-15 mins to Staplehurst or Marden”, the guide says.

From Staplehurst, trains reach London Bridge “in as little as 51 mins”, with an annual season ticket to London costing around £6,544.

What do you think makes Cranbrook a good place to live? Tell us in the comments.