Chatham, Kent

Chatham fortified itself against the Dutch only after they had sailed up the Medway and towed away the flagship, then spent the next few centuries building the navy that made the point, HMS Victory included. Then the Navy left, the dockyard became a museum, and the town kept the forts, the barracks and the traffic. Dickens called his boyhood here the happiest years of his life, and Rochester, next door, has been selling that memory to coach parties ever since. Chatham gets the ring road, the bus station and the cheaper house, which is the trade most people moving here have already worked out.