Braunton

Braunton calls itself a village the way a man with a boat calls himself a sailor, and it has been quietly running the biggest sand dunes in England since before anyone thought to charge for parking near them. The place was founded by a Welsh saint who tried to build his church on the hill, got weathered off it, then had a dream about a pig and put it in a field instead, which remains the most decisive planning process the parish has ever seen. Now it is where surfers, retirees and people who moved down for the light all queue in the same one-way system, each convinced the other two ruined it.