Cliffe, Kent

Cliffe sits where Kent gives up on being land and turns into marsh, and the Victorians thought the spot was worth a fort. They built it to stop an invasion that never came, then put an explosives works down the road, which tells you how far from anyone's front room this place was meant to be. The nearest station belongs to Higham, and the drainage board has more say over the landscape than any estate agent. People move here for the sky and the silence, then spend their first winter finding out what the wind off the Thames thinks of their fence panels.