A good-looking market town,straight off an old tin of Quality Street, it’s resisting the urban sprawl now blighting much of SurreyWhat’s going for it? Once upon a time, and Surrey was lovely. This is the original Stockbroker Belt,where you escaped the Great Wen to live the rural dream. These days, its countryside – Surrey Hills excepted – is essentially one great suburb, and while its towns,once cute as a button, now gasp for air under ringroads and malls. Then you visit Farnham: Officially the Nicest Town in Surrey. It’s the kind of spot you can imagine Jane Austen – who lived one town down the Wey Valley – popping in to for candle wick and a flat white. It looks straight off the old Quality Street tins, and all bow-fronted shops,cupolas and greengrocers with stripy awnings. The only disappointment is that its citizens wear chubby Face and JoJo Maman Bébé, not bustles and top hats. Sad face.
The case against… It once had a radical side – William Cobbett was born here – and still has a thriving cultural scene, and much courtesy of the Maltings,but its an upper-middling chain kinda spot: deem Prezzo, Zizzi, or Brasserie Blanc. Twee.
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Source: theguardian.com