To wonder what makes an area “posh”?

[NotCure172]

Just came back from a friend’s house in a very leafy suburb of West Midlands city. She loves talking about how posh it is where lives but I asked her what does it mean to live in a posh area? How do you know it’s posh? She couldn’t really answer my question and the area was very average.

How do you define a “posh” area?

When the cheapest chicken shop is Nando's.

No, when there are just proper restaurants and lovely cafés and nobody who lives there has ever been in something called a chicken shop!

A Gail’s. When Gail’s moves in, you know you’re posh.

I have to disagree there. I think Nandos is the great leveller. The one near here contains everyone from local yoof gangleaders to head boy at local private schools and everyone in between. This is London though and I think big cities are always going to be more demographically mixed.

Type of shops more luxury items, for example I live in the poor part of Hounslow it's all cheap clothes and pound type shops go to the nicer side of Hounslow got stuff top end prepared meal shops, independent designer influenced clothes shops, high end home fixing shops. People have more money as it costs more to live there. It may cost more to live there but if really hard up would move.

Also, this may only be a teenage boy thing ..

David Austin roses and definitely no football related gnomes in the garden. Heaven forbid.

@Porridgeislife

A Gail’s. When Gail’s moves in, you know you’re posh.

Gails is to Bettys as Asda is to Booths

It's where the only poor people in the area are cleaners.

@elidelochanthefirst

Where there aren't many fast food shops like kebab etc, gambling shops, corner shops and instead there are organic greengrocers, re-useable eco weigh shops, independent coffee shops, French bakeries etc. I live in a posh area and it's a very unique high street!

this doesn't work in London where plenty of streets have both types of shops my local high street has literally all of these! Tbf I have no idea whether it counts as a posh neighbourhood by any other metrics though, so maybe thats a sign

I live in a posh small town. It features in the Sunday papers Best Places to Live. Has a Waitrose and M&S. Definitely no Nando’s and the MacDonalds was built as far out of town as possible.

I’m on an estate with housing association properties (mine included). One of my HA neighbours has a couple of horses she shows. Most of the others are teachers or employed by the NHS. No one is unemployed.

We do have a couple of historically “rough” bit but aside from their children causing problems you wouldn’t know. I’m old friends with a few women from the rough estate. One I used to play rugby with and one I met as a mature student at Uni.

Yoga studios, independent coffee shops only (with local blending / grinders), whole food shops, independent card shops and art galleries.

Gated properties
Waitrose & Marks and Spencers
Coffee shops
Antique shops
Galleries
Private schools

@PrisonerofZeroCovid

Where I'm from posh =

• no/few cars parked on the street (obviously not the case somewhere like London)
• cant see the houses because long drives and hedges/ fences/ gates
• lots of greenery
• nearly everyone has a garden waste bin
• quiet
• parade of shops with no takeaways/ betting shops/ pound shops

Whilst this is certainly posh by UK standards, in many parts of the world that sort of neighbourhood is the norm and is not classed as posh.

Socio economic profile of the area, the jobs people do who live there, and income bracket. The average price of houses sold in the area. Where the ward is on indices of deprivation. All information available about any area on line. You look at it and compare to your own circumstances. If the people are typically more affluent than you, and the houses more expensive than the ones in your area, then its posh as far as you're concerned.

Genuinely if you asking then you don't live in a posh area. It's a case of IYKYK.

@NotCure172, there’s your answer. Sutton Coldfield residents have the “Birmingham Drawl” - still a Brummie accent but they do strange things with their mouths which elongates their vowels. To be fair it is a nice, leafy suburb and the park is beautiful but its residents have always thought themselves a cut above. Many of the older residents are still upset that their status as the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire was changed to Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands when the counties were reshuffled around fifty years ago. Interestingly, for those of us old enough to have learned to read with the Ladybird Peter and Jane series, the illustrator lived in Sutton Coldfield and there are many familiar pictures for those who knew the area, including in Sutton Park.

is Hampstead Garden Suburb posh? I would say so.

However are the areas bordering it like East Finchley, Finchley Central and Golders Green posh? I would say not (I live in one of those areas), but they are pretty decent areas on the whole (even if some parts are mixed). But I would say they are more average than posh. I live around the corner from HGS, its so strange to me that that street is considered posh and mine isn't even though we basically have the same access to amenities, schools, parks, woods, shops etc.

Doesn't stink of weed everyhwere

Does such a place exist in the UK anymore?! Maybe everywhere is the operative word - if you only smell it once or twice on a half hour outing, you know you’re somewhere classy.

We are surrounded by fields and woods so definitely leafy but no shops to indicate class. I’ll have to remain ignorant of my place in society!

I think I would probably laugh in their face if someone told me that they live in a posh area. Even friends that live in nice areas (Regents park etc) have never described their location as posh (because they aren’t wanky).

Chipping Norton felt effortlessly posh for me, what a beautiful area.

@whoatealltheeggs

Well in MNs land it would only be posh if the residents looked unkempt with old clothes & were driving bangers back to their freezing, falling down stately homes!

The car should be coated with dog hair, don’t forget.

If someone says posh I just immediately think of Hyacinth Bucket. All shiny doorknobs and symmetrical marigolds. It’s ironic the word ‘posh’ just indicates the exact opposite!

It’s like trying to define what middle class is. You just… know.

It's a posh area when estate agents claim properties in surrounding areas are in the posh area.

It's a posh area when people living there think they are better than the scum in surrounding areas.

It's a posh area when parents tell their kids not to fraternise with kids from surrounding areas without knowing anything about those kids.

It's a posh area when any crime is automatically blamed on the scum from surrounding areas.

Generally when someone describes their area as posh I assume they mean high property prices (compared to the surrounding area) and maybe an overpriced cafe down the road.