Ashtead

Ashtead calls itself a village with the straight face of a place that has a railway station, two shopping parades and a woodland run by the City of London. The old core along The Street still goes by The Village, and the newer half by the station is Lower Ashtead, a distinction that matters a great deal to the people living on the higher half. The Romans made bricks here and Samuel Pepys spent part of his boyhood here, and neither of them had to drive the single-carriageway A24 at half past eight. Everyone who moved in since has.