Wheathampstead

Wheathampstead was a tribal capital before St Albans was St Albans, and it had Harpenden filed under its own parish until the Victorians let it go, so the village has spent two thousand years watching its spin-offs do better. It lost its railway station generations ago but still has the house prices of a place with one. What the money buys is the old village, the river and the fields, plus the daily drive to Harpenden's platform, the station of the place that used to be your side chapel.