Delabole

Delabole has been digging the same hole since the fifteenth century, which tells you most of what you need to know about the pace of change here. The village grew up around a slate quarry deep enough to have once held a world record, and it later gave the country its first commercial wind farm, so the place has quietly done more heavy industry than half of Cornwall while getting none of the postcards. There is no harbour, no gift shop selling fudge, no coach party pausing for photographs. What there is, is a working village two miles inland from a coast everyone else pays a fortune to look at, full of people who long ago worked out that the view is free if you drive to it.