Ramsgate, Kent
Why did Caesar, Saint Augustine, Hengist and Horsa make Ramsgate their first port of call on assorted crusading trips to England? Proximity to France? Easy landing beaches beneath the cliffs? The lively arts scene?
Probably – pending new archaeological finds – the first two, yet there’s little doubt that this bit of Thanet has long been hopping. Van Gogh, Turner, Pugin, Tissot and Sambourne wielded brushes on its streets. Dickens everyone already knows about, but other local scribblers include Anthony Buckeridge, Russell Hoban and Frank Muir. Sir Moses Montefiore transformed one area of town into a glorious slice of Georgian Jewish splendour; the brainchildren of other mad and sublime architects are dotted all about. The harbourside Home for Smack Boys, a charitable home for orphans and fishing apprentices, is the best church I know.
Granted, there was a bit of a cultural lull through the 80s, 90s and 00s, which is when I knew the town best. My family are from Flora Road, and I spent every holiday there, then even more time when my grandmother was ill. She died in 2005, the year after Ukip set up their first office-cum-gift shop on nearby King Street. But the advent of a high-speed rail link in 2008 turned things around and the subsequent gentrification has been colossal. There’s a proper, credible music venue now, plus an amazing record store, wild museums (obsolete computers, pinball machines), book sales in shipping containers and endless grassroots activity.
The point about Ramsgate though is that it has soul and salt in its bones. Even without the hip additions, it is a place for wild skies and big thoughts. There is no place I love more. Except perhaps Broadstairs: a short walk along the coast, with better rock pools and nicer ice-cream. Catherine Shoard
Letchmore Heath, Hertfordshire
For sheer density of cultural significance per square foot, surely nowhere deserves the title more than the Hertfordshire village where I was born, Letchmore Heath. This pretty, chocolate-boxy place, with its pond, pub and village green on which morris dancers disport themselves, is a short drive from Elstree Studios and is often used for film and TV shoots. Most notably, the 1960 cult sci-fi movie Village of the Damned was shot there (based on John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos), in which the village’s women mysteriously give birth to a weird clutch of blond-haired, dead-eyed children: the advance party of a conquering alien master race. All of the village’s sweetly picturesque sights assumed an eerie dimension after that.
My oldest friend, the novelist Joanna Briscoe – with whom I had playdates in the village when we were four years old – wrote a fascinating thriller set there called Touched, inspired by the film. But these somewhat sinister associations were redeemed in 1973 when George Harrison bought the local manor house, then called Piggott’s Manor – around the time he was working on his album Living in the Material World – renamed it Bhaktivedanta Manor and donated it to the Hare Krishna movement as a place of spiritual calm and enlightenment; there is now a George Harrison Garden dedicated to his memory in the grounds. Peter Bradshaw
Falmouth, Cornwall
St Ives may seem the more obvious choice to represent Cornwall, but the north coast town has been compromised by overtourism, greedily trading on its reputation as a 20th-century artistic haven. Ironically, that’s shut out most contemporary artists from being able to make work there. Plus, St Ives’s creative identity was largely imposed on it by outsiders, save Peter Lanyon and Alfred Wallis.
No, better beautiful cobbled Falmouth, which by way of cultural history has the sun-dappled, softly horny expressionism of 19th-century painter Henry Scott Tuke, and the first ever polytechnic society, which is still going strong today. It was the hub of the Cornish wrestling scene; more modern sporting duels include the annual worm-charming championships. Today, it has festivals celebrating sea shanties, oysters, beer and boats, as well as the indie music festival Wanderfal, spanning the seaside town’s many choice venues – chiefly the Cornish Bank, which organises the fest. Since opening in 2020, the Cornish Bank has put Cornwall back on the touring map as well as cultivating local culture such as the Celtic club night Klub Nos Lowen and much-needed queer events.
There are multiple anarchic theatre companies including Miracle and Near-ta, the art school is still going strong, and at pub-cum-bookshop Beerwolf you can drink cheap ale and buy cheap books (a self-perpetuating combination). The many free gardens are fertile glades, and in the face of shuttering nightclubs across the nation, the inglorious sticky carpets of Club I (sadly not owned by Steve “Phil Mitchell” McFadden, as persistent local rumours would have it) turn 60 next year. Plus, you may spot Aphex Twin in the pub. What more could you want? Laura Snapes
Abergavenny, Monmouthshire
My home town now for nearly a decade, Abergavenny – Aber to lots of us – is where the radical magic of the Welsh borders meets the might of the Welsh valleys. We have what is thought to be the only surviving wooden Jesse in the world – a huge 15th-century religious figure carved from an oak tree, in St Mary’s Priory – and a secret 17th-century Catholic chapel in Plas Gunter Mansion. Our town schooled the groundbreaking working-class academic and novelist Raymond Williams, and our women were instrumental in the Greenham Common peace marches.
There have been recent explosions in culture here, too. Alongside our well-known food festival, the arts organisation Peak Cymru has funded and (literally) platformed up-and-coming artists at its train station HQ, while talks and exhibitions have lit up the Art Shop & Chapel. Forward-thinking independent booksellers Book-ish, the Abergavenny writing festival and the Abergavenny arts festival have celebrated and encouraged local creativity, while Black Mountain Jazz run Jazz Katz, a great monthly improvisation group for young people, alongside hosting gigs. The recently refurbished Borough theatre and the Melville Centre also bubble with potential as venues. Add one of the oldest amateur symphony orchestras in the UK and an award-winning brass band, and there’s a border-town story worth telling here. Jude Rogers
Folkestone, Kent
Folkestone is the UK’s best and largest open-air art gallery, with 91 artworks situated across the town, many of them accompanied by views across the Channel. The best are in dialogue with that body of water: Yoko Ono beaming out the words “Earth peace” towards France in morse code from a lighthouse-like lamp; Christian Boltanski’s The Whispers playing recordings of letters to and from first world war soldiers at low volume as you sit on a bench looking out to sea.
The artworks, along with more that come and go with the Folkestone triennial arts festival, were commissioned by Creative Folkestone, which also bought up 90-odd buildings in the town centre to provide affordable spaces for creatives. As with any arts-led regeneration, there is a certain amount of paternalism. But this was a less lumpen scheme than in say, Bilbao, Spain, or indeed Margate around the Kent coast, where galleries were plonked down like blobs of honeycomb for tourist-sophisticates to buzz around then fly away. Folkestone’s grassroots music is also nurtured with festivals such as Compass, nights such as IYKYK and venues such as Speedway, and there are festivals for everything from documentary film to south-Asian zine culture. Art and creativity are closely woven into Folkestone, rather than just draped over one part of it. Ben Beaumont-Thomas
Portobello, Edinburgh
Twenty years ago, when I moved to Edinburgh, folk went to Porty for the beach, the pistachio-green railings and faded Victorian vibes. The 2-mile stretch of golden sands, along with the bitter winds whipping off the North Sea, made for a bracing walk along the prom. Now, like herring gulls to a fine chippy, we come for the culture. To Portobello Books, one of the best independent bookshops in Scotland, whose legendary events programme last year alone included Ocean Vuong, Jacqueline Wilson and Kit de Waal. To the newly regenerated historic town hall, which is continuing to grow its events programme – I recently chaired Nicola Sturgeon there.
The council library is brilliant and comes into its own every October during Portobello book festival. Last year, I took my daughter to Porty’s annual Art Walk, in which residents open up their homes to show work by contemporary artists, which is as eccentric and delightful as it sounds. Porty Pride is growing year on year into a grassroots community festival to rival Edinburgh and Glasgow’s Pride festivals. Climate-focused community action is powerful in Porty, and often dovetails with the burgeoning art and food scenes. If none of that’s your jam, there’s always the forbearing line of wild swimmers, mostly middle-aged women at the end of their rope, bobbing year-round in the sea, which in Porty is a culture all of its own. Chitra Ramaswamy
Halifax, West Yorkshire
A few years ago, BBC Radio 6 Music dubbed Halifax “the Shoreditch of the north” after the former mill town’s unlikely metamorphosis into a hipster haven to rival the east-London hotspot. Although residents cringed at the comparison, the town has a huge cultural imprint. The 18th-century cloth hall the Piece Hall has been transformed into a world-class outdoor venue hosting the likes of Paul Weller and Boygenius, while the former 19th-century carpet manufacturing complex Dean Clough now hosts a theatre and one of the largest private art galleries in the UK.
The music scene most recently added dreamy indie types the Orielles to an impressive lineage stretching from thrash metallers Paradise Lost to Dubstar’s Sarah Blackwood; The Grayston Unity has emerged as a key northern grassroots hub, while the reunited Stone Roses’ warmup show here a few years back had the Victoria theatre’s balcony literally bouncing.
Lately, the town’s Victorian architecture and breathtaking Calder valley landscapes painted by Turner and immortalised by Ted Hughes have provided locations for several TV series, including Shane Meadows’s The Gallows Pole and Huddersfield-born Sally Wainwright’s smashes Happy Valley, Gentleman Jack and (obviously) Last Tango in Halifax. The Piece Hall was even blown up in the Marvel miniseries Secret Invasion … but, luckily, only fictionally. Dave Simpson
