Silver End

Silver End is a village a window manufacturer built to find out whether his windows leaked. Francis Crittall put flat-roofed white modernist houses out in the Essex drizzle to test his steel frames, so anyone who buys on Silver Street takes on a century-old product trial with a mortgage attached. The factory left, the houses stayed, and the village hall is still the biggest in Britain, which is a lot of dance floor for a place whose commuters drive to Witham for the fast train.