The long main street of Totnes in Devon springs from Old Market, with its fine views across the Dart Valley. Dropping swiftly past Rotherfold, where the bulls used to be penned on market days, it eases the casual visitor past Drift record store, Social Fabric knitting shop, Sacks Wholefoods, The Happy Apple, the colonnaded Butterwalks, and a succession of gift shops, fashion shops, coffee shops and trinket shops.

If you can shun the temptations of the pubs along the way, from the Bay Horse to the Royal Seven Stars Hotel, you’ll have time to take in the slate-hung upper storeys that are a particular feature of this town, the market square with its stalls selling cheap tools and expensive knickknacks, the ruddy tower of the parish church of St Mary standing aloof from the main street's greys and pastels, and the imposing arch of East Gate where High Street becomes Fore Street.

You might begin to wonder how this town of just 8,000 people, the size of a large urban overspill estate, can support such a huge variety of independent traders. They include three local butchers, Roly's fudge shop, a toy shop, even one selling harps. Ray Reynolds, preparing his chorizo wraps in Market Square, takes a moment from chargrilling his sausages to boast that Totnes has the best market in Devon, with more than 50 stalls at its regular Good Food Sunday – and this is from a veteran who previously plied his trade at London's prestigious Borough Market.

Travelling through the West Country in 1720, the writer Daniel Defoe was similarly struck by the apparent local prosperity. Fish and other provisions were so cheap, he observed, that the town was a very good place to live for outsiders with large families, and ‘many such are said to come into those parts on purpose for saving money, and to live in proportion to their income’ (Defoe, 1927, p 225).

Today people are still moving to the town, although it's nowhere near as cheap as it once was. Outsiders, although disdainfully described as ‘blow-ins’ by locals, have kept Totnes thriving while other Devon towns have fallen on hard times. Even outside the tourist season the town looks buzzing and prosperous. The library, tucked down a narrow passageway at 27a High Street, is full too, with parents helping their children choose picture books and pensioners dozing over newspapers.