Where tourists seldom tread, part 6: ‘ugly, lovely towns’ with stories to tell

Dungannon, Burnley, Barrow-in-Furness, Harlow and Merthyr Tydfil may not be quaint, but these robust centres have a poetry that’s all their own

part one | part two | part three | part four | part five

Type the names of many ordinary towns into Google followed by “is” and the search engine often autocompletes with “a dump”. The predictive text becomes self-perpetuating as people click on the link, through curiosity or accident. Local newspapers abet negativity with regurgitations of “worst places to live” rankings from surveys commissioned by dubious sources trying to grab attention in the digital media morass. The five towns featured below have surfaced on such lists, but ugliness has as many forms as beauty, as Dylan Thomas hinted at when he called Swansea “an ugly, lovely town”. Both adjectives can be simultaneously true. The ugliest place in England for me is Belgravia, London, where monotonous facades and security cameras sneer down at empty pavements. I think Belgravia “is a dump”. But I’d still go there to see it, understand it, know it.