This Sought-After Village

According to Wikipedia, an English rural village has a church, a pub or inn, shops and a blacksmith. Well, we no longer have a blacksmith, but we do pretty well for the other facilities thank you very much.  We have a lovely church, with recently-added floodlighting to deter the lead thieves.  We have two pubs in our village, in addition to a sports and social club with bar.  We have a butcher/deli and a newsagent/sub-post-office (there have been some nervous times in the last few years whenever the C word is mentioned), although our corner shop has recently closed. In addition to these, we have a primary school, a small garden centre, two hairdressers (at least) and a travelling chiropodist. We even have a bus service!

All of which contributes to estate agents being able to advertise properties here as being in a 'very popular village'.  It sounds lovely.  It is lovely!  But it also means that the market being what it is, properties in our village, as well as being few and far between, are rather expensive.  A quick check on zoopla today reveals that the current cheapest property is £245,000.  And that's for a two-bedroomed house.  For families who have lived here for a while, whose children are now hoping to become home-owners in their own right, our village is not really an option, so they have to move right away from our little rural idyll.  I find myself wondering how long it will be before our village school closes and reopens as a pensioners' day centre.  Which would doubtless count as another attraction as far as the estate agents are concerned.

One of our lovely pubs