Chippenham

Chippenham is what Bath buyers settle on once they've seen Bath's prices, and most of them spend the week pointed down the M4 at somewhere else. The Vikings besieged it in the ninth century, which is still the last time anyone was desperate to get into the town rather than out of it. It once let its medieval market cross be carted off to a Castle Combe manor garden as a gazebo, then waited a century and had a whip-round to get it back. Practical first, sentimental later, chain stores on the high street throughout.