Shaftesbury

Shaftesbury built itself on top of a hill for defensive reasons and has been turning things down ever since, starting with the railway, which took one look at the gradient and went to Gillingham instead. The richest nunnery in England stood here until the Dissolution flattened it, and the abbess's old farmland is now the Tesco car park, which is the most honest piece of town planning in Dorset. Gold Hill and one bread advert have done more for the town's reputation than the abbey, the wool trade and the button-makers ever managed between them.