Dartmouth, Devon

Dartmouth is a town that has spent nine hundred years watching other people leave for somewhere more interesting and charging them for the privilege. The Crusaders sailed from here, the Pilgrim Fathers stopped off, and the Royal Navy still parks its officer cadets on the hill above the estuary so they can learn to salute before they learn to sail. What survives is a set of narrow lanes and Elizabethan frontages so photogenic that the buildings now cost more than the maritime empire they were built on, and a river with no bridge for eleven miles, which locals will tell you is a feature. The town runs on ferries, tides and the polite understanding that nobody is in a hurry.