Ebbsfleet Valley

Ebbsfleet Valley is a garden city built in the hole a cement industry left behind, and the show homes would rather you didn't bring that up. Everything here is new: the roads, the schools, the trees still held up by stakes, and neighbours who are still working out whose parcel is whose. Celts held the river sacred, the Romans ran a road through it, and a straight-tusked elephant got here before either of them. Not one of them had to choose a kitchen splashback from a brochure, so the current settlers can at least claim to be first at something.