Weybridge

Weybridge has been where the well-off come to retire early since at least 1724, and nobody has seen any reason to change the arrangement. Henry VIII built a palace here for a wife he was rid of inside six months, which set the local tone for very expensive commitments that look better on paper. The Iron Age fort on St George's Hill went under twentieth-century housebuilding, so the defended hilltop with a wall round it just changed owners. Then somebody built a motor-racing circuit at Brooklands, and the town has been parking cars too big for the High Street ever since.