Brentwood, Essex

Brentwood started the Peasants' Revolt by refusing to pay a tax, and six centuries later it is exactly the sort of town that would set up a residents' group to object to the revolt. It lies just outside the M25, which locals treat as a moat and Londoners treat as a technicality now the Elizabeth line runs straight through to Paddington. The fifteenth-century coaching inn on the High Street spent the early part of this century as a nightclub, which is roughly where the town's sense of occasion ended up. Pilgrims used to stop here on the way to Canterbury, and their modern equivalent is the commuter who got off for a look at the schools and never got back on the train.