Ottery St Mary

Ottery St Mary is a town that once a year sets fire to barrels of tar and carries them through crowds on its own shoulders, and spends the other three hundred and sixty-four days being extremely careful about the flower beds. The River Otter runs through the middle of it, which is charming right up until the point it isn't, and everyone here knows exactly which end of that sentence their house sits on. Coleridge grew up in the vicarage and left as soon as he plausibly could, which the town has decided to remember as a compliment.