Budleigh Salterton

Budleigh Salterton is where people go when they have finished with ambition and want somewhere pleasant to be finished in. The town famously has a pebble beach, which is the coastal equivalent of a firm handshake: bracing, honest, and no fun whatsoever for children. The Victorians put a railway here to bring visitors in, Beeching took it away again, and the town's reaction was less grief than quiet relief that the day-trippers would have to make more of an effort. What is left is a place that guards its own calm like a will, and would rather you did not park on it.