Ashford, Surrey

Ashford has to put its county in brackets on the train timetable so nobody turns up expecting the Eurostar, and that bracket is the closest the town gets to a reputation. It was Middlesex until 1965, then got posted to Surrey in a reorganisation, and it wears the new address like a blazer borrowed from a richer cousin. Every bank on Church Road has gone while all three funeral directors have stayed, which is a fair read on what the high street thinks it can still rely on. The title of Lord of the Manor passed to Russell Grant, and a town that mostly clocks in at Heathrow has never thought to ask what his stars say about the landing schedule.