42 articles
Basildon
Basildon is a town and borough in Essex, England, designated a New Town on 4 January 1949 under the New Towns Act 1946. Built around ten neighbourhoods and a pedestrianised town centre, it had 193,489 residents in 2025.
Bedford
Bedford: county town of Bedfordshire and unitary authority (E06000055) in England's East of England; 185,225 residents (2021), River Great Ouse, large Italian community, directly elected mayor, and the planned Universal entertainment resort.
Bishop's Stortford
Bishop's Stortford is a Hertfordshire market town on the Essex border, on the River Stort. Also called Esterteferd; known for Waytemore Castle, the 1769 Stort Navigation, Stansted Airport proximity, and its conservation area.
Borehamwood
Borehamwood, Hertfordshire town in Hertsmere borough, England; home of Elstree Studios since 1914 and called the British Hollywood; 36,324 residents (2021), major town centre regeneration and Sky Studios expansion underway.
Brentwood, Essex
Brentwood, Essex: a town in southwest England's Essex county, east of London, named "burnt wood" and founded as a 12th-century pilgrim stop on the London–Colchester Roman road; borough since 1993, population about 77,000.
Buckhurst Hill
Buckhurst Hill is a residential town in southwest Essex on the London border, half within Epping Forest. Known for its 1856 railway-driven Victorian growth, St John's Conservation Area, Central line stations, and 2021 population of 11,752.
Bury St Edmunds
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk market town named for St Edmund, king killed by Danes in 869; site of one of England's richest Benedictine abbeys (refounded 1020, dissolved 1539), the 1214 barons' meeting linked to Magna Carta, and today's Abbey Gardens and cathedral.
Cambridge
Cambridge, England: Cambridgeshire city and seat of the University of Cambridge (founded 1209), Europe's largest technology cluster with 5,000+ high-tech firms, population just under 146,000 in 2021, facing housing, water, and transport constraints.
Chelmsford
Chelmsford is the county town of Essex, England, granted city status in 2012. Known for its 1199 market charter, Roman Caesaromagus origins, Marconi radio industry, and new Beaulieu Park station (2025).
Clacton-on-Sea
Clacton-on-Sea is an Essex seaside resort founded in 1871 by engineer Peter Schuyler Bruff, linked to London by rail in 1882, the largest town in Tendring with over 53,000 people, and home to Grade II registered seafront gardens.
Clare, Suffolk
Clare, Suffolk: a small medieval market town in West Suffolk on the River Stour, known for Clare Castle, Clare Priory, its wool-trade heritage, and over 130 listed buildings.
Coggeshall
Coggeshall is a historic wool town in Braintree district, Essex, on the River Blackwater. Founded around a 1140 abbey of King Stephen, it prospered in wool and cloth, retaining Grange Barn, Paycocke's House, and over 200 listed buildings.
Colchester
Colchester (Camulodunum) is a city in Essex, England, Britain's first Roman capital, site of Europe's largest Norman keep, population 192,700 in 2021, granted city status in 2022.
Ely, Cambridgeshire
Ely, Cambridgeshire (Isle of Ely): England's second smallest cathedral city, founded around Etheldreda's monastery of c.673 on a Kimmeridge clay island in the Fens, home to Ely Cathedral's 14th-century Octagon and a growing Cambridge commuter city.
Fakenham
Fakenham is a market town on the River Wensum in North Norfolk, England, granted its market charter in 1250. Known for its Thursday Charter Market, Georgian Market Place shaped by fires of 1660, 1718, and 1738, and Britain's only intact surviving town gasworks, now a museum.
Framlingham
Framlingham, Suffolk: an Anglo-Saxon-origin market town in East Suffolk, England, known for Framlingham Castle where Mary Tudor was proclaimed Queen in 1553, its mere, schools, and Ed Sheeran connections.
Frinton-on-Sea
Frinton-on-Sea, Essex seaside resort on the Essex Sunshine Coast in Tendring District; planned late-19th-century railway resort for the upper-middle class, known for its sandy Blue Flag beach, beach huts, level crossing, and Frinton Summer Theatre.
Grays
Grays, historically Grays Thurrock, is a town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England, on the northern bank of the River Thames about 21 miles from London, and the largest town in the borough.
Great Yarmouth
Great Yarmouth, Norfolk coastal town and port on a Yare-North Sea peninsula; medieval Europe's largest herring port, walled by 1396, seaside resort since the 1700s, now offshore wind and £150m Quayside regeneration.
Harlow
Harlow, Essex: a British new town designated in 1947 to relieve overcrowding in north-east London, master-planned by Sir Frederick Gibberd with green wedges, neighbourhood units, The Lawn tower, and a major 2020s town centre regeneration.
Harwich
Harwich, Essex, England: historic North Sea port town at the Stour-Orwell mouth, home of Harwich International Port (Parkeston Quay, 1883), Stena Hook of Holland ferries, Harwich Haven Authority, Mayflower links, and the 1667 Treadwheel Crane.
Hatfield, Hertfordshire
Hatfield, Hertfordshire: historic market town 29 km north of London, home of Hatfield House (Cecil family, Elizabeth I's accession), de Havilland's aircraft works, a 1948 New Town, and the University of Hertfordshire.
Hemel Hempstead
Hemel Hempstead: Hertfordshire market town designated a 1947 Mark One New Town, planned by Geoffrey Jellicoe as a town in a park; 60,000 planned population, Water Gardens, Maylands Business Park, and Garden Town growth since 2019.
Hitchin
Hitchin: historic Hertfordshire market town on the River Hiz, named for the Saxon Hicce tribe, recorded in Domesday 1086, charterless pre-12th-century market, railway town from 1850, now undergoing the Churchgate regeneration project.
Huntingdon
Huntingdon: Cambridgeshire market town, county town of Huntingdonshire, on the River Great Ouse; chartered by King John in 1205, birthplace of Oliver Cromwell, bridging point on Ermine Street.
Ipswich
Ipswich (Gipeswic) is the county town of Suffolk, England, at the head of the Orwell estuary. One of only four Middle Saxon emporia, it grew from a 7th-century trading port into a borough of about 139,600 people (2021).
King's Lynn
King's Lynn (locally Lynn) is a Norfolk port town on the River Great Ouse, founded as Bishop's Lynn by Bishop Herbert de Losinga, a Hanseatic League kontor, England's third port in the 14th century, renamed King's Lynn in the 1530s.
Leigh-on-Sea
Leigh-on-Sea (Domesday 'Legra') is an Essex town on the Thames Estuary, once a busy port, now known for Old Leigh, its cockle fishery of 14 licensed boats, MSC certification, and a £22m port regeneration.
Letchworth
Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire, is the world's first Garden City, founded 1903 on Ebenezer Howard's 1898 ideas, masterplanned by Parker and Unwin, now run by the Heritage Foundation.
Lincoln, England
Lincoln, England: county town of Lincolnshire on the River Witham; Roman Lindum Colonia, one of four British coloniae; Norman cathedral begun 1072; city of 102,545 people (2022).