Launceston, Cornwall

Launceston spent centuries as the county town of Cornwall, lost the job to Bodmin, lost its railway, and now sits a mile from the Devon border being the last thing you pass before the A30 gets serious. The castle on the hill has been keeping an eye on the place since the Normans and has watched it slowly become somewhere people stop for fuel. It is a proper market town that does its own shopping, minds its own business, and has never once tried to convince anyone it is the next St Ives. Come for the granite and the steep streets, stay because you turned right off the dual carriageway and quietly liked it.