Dunstable

Dunstable has been a stop on the way to somewhere else since the Romans paved Watling Street through it, and it has never quite forgiven the traffic. Henry VIII's first marriage was formally ended at the priory here, a decision that led to the Church of England, though the high street shows no sign of having been told. The trains left in 1965, and the old track now carries a guided bus, the most Bedfordshire answer to a missing railway anyone could have designed. Above it all the Downs do the job the shopping centre used to do, giving people from elsewhere a reason to drive in on a Sunday.