Exeter

Exeter is a city that keeps getting flattened and rebuilt by people who then act surprised when the next lot turn up. Romans, Danes, Normans, the Luftwaffe, and finally the planners, who did the most lasting damage of the four. What survived is a cathedral, a chunk of Roman wall, and a High Street so thoroughly colonised by national chains that surveyors once named it the worst clone town in the country, which is a rare kind of achievement for somewhere with a Norman castle in the garden. It is a proper city that behaves like a big market town, and the people who move here from Bristol or London stop noticing the difference within about a year.