Bromley

Bromley has been part of London since 1965 and still talks about the place as if it were somewhere you commute to from Kent. It's where Orpington comes for the big shop and where Croydon comes when it wants the same shops with fewer surprises, and the town would take both as compliments. H. G. Wells was born here and spent his career imagining Martians and time machines, a fair response to a father who sold cricket bats on the High Street. King John granted the market charter in 1205, and Bromley has treated shopping as a civic duty ever since.