It was a bright morning in May 2007 when it first became obvious that Exeter had changed, really changed. Until then the city, which is the county capital of Devon, in south-west England’s agricultural and tourist heartland, was relatively anonymous.

It was the place that outsiders visited on wet days when the rugged landscapes of nearby Dartmoor were too intimidating or the little ports of south Devon’s coast looked too sun-starved. But all that stopped last spring when a tented village popped up near the city’s 15th-century cathedral. Its temporary residents were enthusiastic buyers, mostly from the south-east, willing to camp overnight to snap up £600,000 apartments in Princesshay, the city’s new, glamorous retail and residential scheme.