Rickmansworth

Rickmansworth spent centuries milling paper and growing watercress, then the Metropolitan line turned up and the town worked out it paid better to leave every morning. Cardinal Wolsey's old manor ended up as a golf clubhouse, and the flooded gravel pits went to people who own wetsuits, which is about as Home Counties as a redevelopment plan gets. Valley Road once went from near-freezing to a summer afternoon in a single day, still the record for England, and nobody here has wanted that much excitement since.