The best market town in the UK is a several-hundred-year-old settlement that nearly straddles England and Wales at the two of the countries’ most stunning points.
Ross-on-Wye, in Herefordshire, sits surrounded by rolling countryside a few miles from the Welsh border and within the Wye Valley National Landscape.
Visitors to the community can only access the town bounds via the River Wye, which bisects the landscape, each bank dominated by luscious greenery and gently sloping hills en route to Hereford and beyond.
The river is one of its most popular local pulls, with fishing, canoeing, paddle boarding and the overall scenery enticing eager visitors.
And it is no wonder that the town, which prides itself on being “the birthplace of British tourism”, continues to receive tens of thousands of visitors per year.
Ross-on-Wye is the birthplace of the “package holiday”, first conceived by local rector Dr John Egerton, who started taking his friends down the river on boat trips from his Ross rectory.
His continued trips sparked booming interest in the area, the publication of the book Observations on the River Wye, and by 1808, allowed tour operators to hire eight boats to take people on regular excursions down the river.
The reputation has persisted into the 21st Century, with boat tours running to this day, offered by multiple companies based along the river.
The buzzing tourist scene and local beauty convinced one of the UK’s biggest coach tour firms to dub it the best market town in the country.
National Express named Ross-on-Wye the best-loved market town in the country, with National Express Managing Director Tom Stables hailing it as the best of 10 classic market towns.
He said: “With its picturesque location and stunning Market House it’s hardly surprising Ross-on-Wye is regarded as one of the best towns in the UK.
“It’s tough to think of anything more quintessentially British than a market town, and we think that’s worth celebrating.”
The town placed ahead of similarly well-regarded communities Chippenham and Farnham.
The National Express ranked its best-loved towns as follows:
1. Ross-on-Wye (Herefordshire)
2. Thirsk (North Yorkshire)
3. Grantham (Lincolnshire)
4. Bedford (Bedfordshire)
5. Shepton Mallet (Somerset)
6. Chippenham (Wiltshire)
7. Ledbury (Herefordshire)
8. Tie: Bridport (Dorset) Devizes (Wiltshire)
9. Wareham (Dorset)
10. Farnham (Surrey)
