Melbourn

Melbourn is a Cambridgeshire village whose post goes through a Hertfordshire town, and nobody here seems remotely bothered about it. The A10 was sent round the back of the high street, so the lorries get the bypass and the village keeps its pavements, which is about as good a deal as a village on a main road ever gets. People have been settling by its springs since the Bronze Age, and the place is still named after a stream that belonged to a man called Melde, who got his name on it for ever and never paid a penny of the asking price.