317 articles
Mansfield
Mansfield: largest market town and district of west Nottinghamshire, England; 110,500 people (2021). Former coal town hit by 1980s pit closures, high deprivation, £20m levelling-up funding, 1227 market charter.
Margate
Margate is a seaside town in Thanet, Kent, England, one of England's earliest resorts, home to Dreamland's Grade II Scenic Railway (1920) and the Turner Contemporary (2011), with major ongoing regeneration.
Marlow, Buckinghamshire
Marlow, Buckinghamshire: Thames-side commuter and visitor town between Reading and Windsor, an old inland port with a William Tierney Clark suspension bridge (1833), links to Mary Shelley, T. S. Eliot, and Jerome K. Jerome, and the 14th-century Old Parsonage.
Melksham
Melksham: market town in west Wiltshire, England, on the Bristol Avon; 18,113 residents (2021). Domesday royal manor, 1219 market charter, cloth and rubber industries, railway since 1848.
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough: Tees Valley town in North East England, founded 1830 as a planned railway coal-port town, once 'Ironopolis'; now a unitary authority of about 143,900-152,795 people, 2nd most deprived English district (IMD 2025), undergoing major regeneration.
Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes: Buckinghamshire new town designated 23 January 1967, Britain's largest post-war new town, built on a 1 km road grid with 322 km Redways; recommended for renewed new-town status in 2025.
Minchinhampton
Minchinhampton is a small Cotswold town and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, about 4 miles south of Stroud, with a population of 5,096 at the 2021 census.
Morecambe
Morecambe, Lancashire seaside resort on Morecambe Bay including Heysham port; boomed late 19th to mid-20th century, declined by the 1970s, and is regenerating around the Eden Project Morecambe attraction.
Nelson, Lancashire
Nelson, Lancashire: a Pendle mill town named after a railway station opened in 1849, once a major cotton-weaving center, now undergoing £25m Town Deal and £20m Pride in Place regeneration.
New Alresford
New Alresford: Hampshire market town founded c.1200 by Bishop Godfrey de Lucy with a T-shaped plan and Great Weir; Georgian rebuilding after 1689 and 1736 fires; Watercress Line terminus; conservation area since 1969.
Newbury, Berkshire
Newbury, Berkshire: market town in the Kennet valley, West Berkshire, England. Known for its 1596 Elizabethan charter, clothier Jack of Newbury, two Civil War battles, the Kennet and Avon Canal, Newbury Racecourse, and nearby Greenham Common.
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne, a city in Tyne and Wear, North East England, grew from the Roman fort of Pons Aelius (AD 122) and the 1080 Norman castle that gave it its name; population 300,200 (2021), once Britain's coal-port and railway cradle.
Newcastle-under-Lyme
Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire market town and borough near Stoke-on-Trent, chartered by Henry II in 1173; 129,600 residents, medieval High Street layout, ongoing £90m town centre regeneration.
North Wraxall
North Wraxall: Wiltshire parish (Upper Wraxall, Ford, Mountain Bower, The Shoe) on the Fosse Way, known for the Truckle Hill Roman villa excavated by Scrope 1859-60 and its 2000s bath-house digs.
Northampton
Northampton, England: county town on the River Nene in the East Midlands, not the Massachusetts city. Saxon burh, Norman castle of Simon de Senlis, and historic center of English boot and shoe making.
Northfleet
Northfleet is a Thames-side town in Gravesham, Kent, historically a major cement-making center from James Parker's 1792 Roman cement works, now part of Ebbsfleet Garden City regeneration.
Norwich
Norwich is a cathedral city in Norfolk, England, on the Rivers Wensum and Yare, with a population around 145,591 and a famous medieval castle and cathedral.
Nottingham
Nottingham: East Midlands city in England, county town of Nottinghamshire, population 325,765 (mid-2025). Known for its sandstone caves, lace-making heritage, £11bn economy, two universities, and 2026-2028 local government reorganisation into two unitary councils.
Octon
Octon: a Yorkshire settlement in Thwing parish recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book (held by King William, formerly Grimkel, 3 hides), and separately an ancient sanctuary site in Gaul catalogued as BAtlas 15 A2.
Oldham
Oldham: large town and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England, among the Pennines. Former world-leading cotton-spinning town (335 mills by 1911); now known for regeneration, deprivation, Saddleworth moorland and Oldham Athletic.
Oswaldtwistle
Oswaldtwistle is a Lancashire town between Blackburn and Accrington, home of James Hargreaves' 1764 Spinning Jenny and a major cotton and calico-printing centre, now known for Oswaldtwistle Mills shopping village.
Oswestry
Oswestry (Croesoswallt) is Shropshire's second largest market town, near the Welsh border on the A5. Known for Old Oswestry hillfort, the 1190 market charter, Cambrian Railways headquarters, and poet Wilfred Owen's birthplace.
Oxford
Oxford, England: university city on the Thames and Cherwell, home of the University of Oxford, population about 165,200, with a knowledge-intensive economy, severe housing costs, and protected historic skyline.
Padstow
Padstow (Cornish: Lannwedhenek) is a harbour town and resort on the west side of the Camel estuary, north Cornwall. Ancient fishing port tied to St Petroc's monastery; now tourism-led, with the Camel Trail, Prideaux Place, the Obby 'Oss festival and Rick Stein's seafood restaurants.
Pangbourne
Pangbourne is a village in West Berkshire, England, on the Thames at the River Pang confluence. First recorded AD 844 (Pegingaburnan, Paega's people's stream), Domesday manor, Reading Abbey holding, Victorian riverside resort after the 1840 railway.
Penzance
Penzance (Cornish Pennsans, "holy headland") is west Cornwall's largest town and historic port on Mount's Bay. Borough chartered 1614, market rights 1332, Spanish burning 1595, Golowan Festival, Jubilee Pool, 2020 Great Town Award.
Peterborough
Peterborough, England: cathedral city and unitary authority in Cambridgeshire on the River Nene, 124 km north of London. Founded around a 655 monastery, designated a New Town in 1967; population 223,665 (mid-2024). Distinct from Peterborough, Ontario.
Petersfield
Petersfield, Hampshire: a South Downs market town founded in the 12th century, on the London-Portsmouth line since 1859, with a 65-minute Waterloo commute, £485,000 average house prices, and a Sunday Times 2026 top-11 South East ranking.
Pickering, North Yorkshire
Pickering, North Yorkshire: market town and civil parish of about 7,000 on the A170 at the southern edge of the North York Moors, gateway to the park, home to Pickering Castle, medieval church wall paintings, and the North Yorkshire Moors Railway terminus.
Plymouth
Plymouth, Devon coastal city and naval port; recorded as Sudtone in 1086, Mayflower departure 1620, Devonport dockyard, population 264,700 (2021), University contributes £819m to UK economy.