Dorchester, Dorset

Dorchester is a Roman garrison that became a market town that became the place where Dorset's paperwork gets processed, and every layer is still visible if you squint past the coffee franchises on South Street. Thomas Hardy loved it enough to fictionalise it and live in it, which tells you the county town has always been better at being written about than written off. The Duchy built an entire model village on its western edge to demonstrate what proper architecture looks like, and the rest of Dorchester has been politely ignoring the lecture ever since.