Cranbrook, Kent

Cranbrook got rich weaving cloth in the Middle Ages and has spent the centuries since making sure nothing looks like it happened afterwards. Most of the high street is listed, so changing a front door is less a weekend job than a negotiation with history, and when the railway left in the sixties the town took it as a compliment. A court here once had to rule on whether cricket was a lawful game, which tells you how Cranbrook greets anything new: with a hearing.