Chipping Ongar

Chipping Ongar is a London commuter town that London took the Tube back from, and it has been driving to Epping about it ever since. The station was built to carry on to Dunmow or Chelmsford and never did, so the line now runs steam trains at weekends for people who want to go nowhere in particular, slowly, with a flask. The High Street is the real thing, wide enough to park on and so narrow at one end that two people on the pavement have to negotiate. Even the Royal Mail has dropped the "Chipping", the old word for market, which saves everyone pretending.