North Petherton

North Petherton is a town that Chaucer was sent to as a forestry job at the end of his career, which tells you roughly what the place has always been for: somewhere useful to be near, on the way to somewhere else. Then the motorway arrived, took the lorries off the main street, and the town quietly filled up with people who wanted Taunton money without Taunton prices and a garden big enough to justify the drive. The church tower is genuinely spectacular and the Somerset Levels start about where the gardens stop, which is either the charm or the drainage problem depending on the month.