Dawlish

Dawlish spent two centuries building a reputation on black swans and a sea wall, which is a bold pair of things to hang a town on given what the Atlantic does to both. The main line runs along the front like a dare, and every few winters the sea takes a section of it away and the whole country remembers Dawlish exists for about a fortnight. The town has since been fortified, landscaped and rebranded more times than anyone can be bothered to count, and it still comes down to the same arrangement: a lawn, a stream, a beach, and a railway that will one day be somebody else's problem. People who move here for the postcard tend to stay for the fact that nothing much happens, which is either the appeal or the warning depending on how old you are.