The train that carried me from the airport sliced through a landscape that belied the headlines of the MSM or even the trending hot-potato topics on social media (whatever your preferred flavor). This was not the United Kingdom of censorship, grey bureaucracy, and urban decay. Here were green fields, old brick homes, and rustic rest left unrenovated regardless of the state of the buildings that could be seen out of the window. A different England, where whispers of hard, honest toil over cobblestones and candlelight still linger, just a breath of history away.

The town that embraced the station where I had to get off greeted me with charm and contradiction, a town breathing history yet suffocating under its future. Dilapidated walls and beautiful old townhouses rested uneasily on the carcass of fast-food chains, while the silent shadows of empty, once homely, storefronts told a tale of a culture unsure of where it is going, even as its stones remember where it has been.

And yet, hidden in that postcard paradox, gems remain, unpolished and raw. Street food stalls still serve tradition, probably just as unhealthy, but at least with a trace of local character, beyond the hollow parody that modern fish-and-chips has become.

A message lit my phone, Ben was in town and eager to go. Historical streets come with little to no parking space.

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