Midsomer Norton

Midsomer Norton is a Somerset coal town that ran out of coal and has been quietly getting on with it ever since, which is more than most places manage. The river runs down the middle of the high street in a channel, the coal batches still loom over the rooftops like spoil-heap monuments to an industry nobody misses, and the town has never once traded on the fact that its name sounds like somewhere a fictional detective solves eleven murders a year. Buyers arrive expecting a Mendip village and find a working town with a Wetherspoons and a bypass, then either settle in properly or spend two years telling people they meant to buy in Chilcompton.