Wadebridge

Wadebridge is a town that solved its own problem by building a bypass and then discovered it quite liked being ignored. The bridge that gave the place its name went up because a vicar got tired of watching people drown crossing the ford, which is the most Cornish origin story available: someone died, someone else built something, everyone moved on. The railway that once hauled sand up from the estuary is now a cycle path full of people in hired helmets who think they have discovered somewhere, and the town has the good manners not to tell them otherwise. It is where north Cornwall keeps its dentists, its supermarkets and its actual residents, while the coast a few miles away does the photographs.