Watchet

Watchet spent a thousand years shipping iron ore, paper bags and Danish raiders' regrets out of a harbour that now holds pleasure boats and a lighthouse that gets a royal plaque every hundred and fifty years. The paper mill shut, the marina arrived, and the town has been quietly deciding what to be ever since, without much urgency about it. It sits on the edge of Exmoor with a tide that shifts twenty feet and a cliff colour so specific the Tudors named a shade of blue after it, which is the sort of claim to fame you either find charming or find yourself explaining at dinner parties in Taunton. Come for the harbour, stay because leaving involves a lot of driving.