Kempston

Kempston never bothered with a middle. For centuries it was a scatter of hamlets called Ends, one of them Bell End, until the fields between them ran out and a town turned up by accident. Even the parish church got stranded out in Church End, on the far side of a bypass, so you know where the priorities lie. The river keeps it apart from Bedford and the postcode files it under Bedford anyway, and the name means crooked settlement, the most honest bit of branding in the county.