Cirencester

Cirencester was once the second-biggest city in Roman Britain, and it has spent the centuries since behaving like a market town that knows it could have been a contender. The townspeople fought the abbots for the right to run their own affairs for the best part of three hundred years and lost, which explains a lot about how the place takes being told no. These days it is the Cotswolds' working end: the postcard villages come here to buy loo roll and get the car serviced, while the polo club in the Earl's park reminds everyone who still owns the scenery. The town has had no railway station of its own since the sixties, and judging by the ring road, it has taken that personally.