Romsey

Romsey is timelessly English, which is the genteel way of saying nothing has been allowed to happen here since the Waitrose opened in 1969. There was once a saying that "so drunk he must have been to Romsey" actually meant something, back when the town ran on pubs rather than garden centres and pension pots. Now it honeymoons royalty at Broadlands and quietly retires everyone else, a place so settled that its most dramatic hour was an abbey talking its way out of demolition.