We moved here from Angel about 2 years ago and so far we absolutely love it.

We've met loads of local families, who are now our friends (which was a total change from Angel, where we barely knew even our next-door neighbours) and spend most of our weekends in the area, particularly the gardens of the Horniman Museum.

You can get a lot more for your money here, and the houses are generally of great quality- lots of good Victorian and 1930s housing stock - though some still require renovation, which at least might allow you to pick up a 'bargain'. A lot of the houses have decent sized gardens, again a welcome difference to us when we moved here. We looked at both East Dulwich and Forest Hill before we moved here, and it seemed to us as though Forest Hill is much greener and offered better value overall.

In my opinion, the area is a great mix of established locals as well as young professionals and families who have just discovered it. Personally, I have never seen or experienced any crime here - again, quite different from my experience of Angel.

There a few nice restaurants and coffee shops (and another coffee shop has just opened up opposite the train station) and hopefully the trend will continue in the next couple of years. Admittedly, there isn't a shopping 'hub' like Lordship Lane at the moment but that may change.

I don't know if it's relevant for you, but if you have (or are thinking of starting) a family but don't want to pay for a private school, quite a few of the local primary schools (eg, Fairlawn/Horniman) have very good or outstanding OFSTED reports.

Forest Hill is well connected with frequent trains to London Bridge and will become even better connected with the East London Line coming in May, and hopefully the Thameslink a few years later. Some rumours even mention that we might get an extended Bakerloo line by 2020! (though I don't know how much truth there is in that).

Anyhow, the bottom line is that I'm very glad we moved here and I recommend it to all my friends!

Hope this helps.