Great Dunmow

Great Dunmow lost its railway, got bypassed by its own main road and now sits closer to an airport than to a station, which is how a town ends up with planes overhead and no train home. For centuries it was run by a self-appointed club of burgesses whose main civic achievement was spending the market tolls on a feast for themselves. Lionel Lukin tested his unsinkable lifeboat on a pond here. Sensible idea, safe water, no sea for miles: that is Dunmow in one experiment.