Illustration by Marta Signori Devon is full of little villages, snug in their combes, carefully thatched, held apart from the passing of time by planning laws and a lack of public transport. Newton Abbot is not one of them. It is where the market, the train station and the industrial estate were put so that the villages could stay untouched. It’s not all that new these days; the abbot in question took possession of the place at the beginning of the 13th century. Since then, local farmers have sold livestock and produce in the town’s markets, followed – as in markets of all kinds – by a drink. Prettily priced pints The long Victorian buildings that house the Maltings Taphouse once produced enough malt to make 15 million pints per year. This business stopped in 2018, but before it did, the taphouse opened to make good use of a building that will, let’s face it, end up as a block of flats eventually.…