Holloway, London

Holloway is a main road that eventually acquired some houses, and the road has never once apologised for it. For centuries cattle walked this way south to be slaughtered at Smithfield, and on match days outside the Emirates the tradition carries on with replica shirts and a worse diet. The largest women's prison in Europe used to be here, and now people take out mortgages to get in. Behind the Nag's Head the terraces are lovely, though the night bus will wake you every time it passes until the night you can't sleep without it.