Witham

Witham grew up beside the Roman road between Chelmsford and Colchester, and the Knights Templar's big idea was to move the market onto it in case anyone passing through felt like stopping. London sent its families out here in the sixties to get them away from the capital, and their children now stand on the platform every morning paying to go back. The station is busier than a town this size has any right to be, which tells you where most of Witham would rather be by nine o'clock on a Tuesday. It tried being a spa town in the eighteenth century, briefly, and has been a very good place to sleep ever since.