Budleigh Past and Present

    The Protestant Martyrs’ Memorial in Exeter, at the corner of Barnfield Road and Denmark Road August 1557. The Catholic Queen Mary has been on the throne of England since 1 October 1553. She is determined to reverse the changes in religion that have occurred since the Protestant Reformation took place during the reign of her father King Henry VIII. Over the last two years, since February 1555, a total of 227 ‘heretics’ – men and women, two of them pregnant – have been put to death. All, except for one, were burnt alive. The 228 th is a Cornishwoman by the name of Agnes Prest. Denounced by her husband, she’s been arrested as a ‘heretic’, transported to Exeter and condemned to death by burning ‘for refusing to worship a piece of bread as God’.   No doubt she has also caused a scandal by speaking out about such matters of theology, for which women are considered ill-suited. A good wife, say the authorities, should rather concern herself with household matters....

As part of my research into life during WW2 in Budleigh Salterton I’ve been dipping into the ‘Henrietta’ series of books. They originally appeared in the form of letters published in the wartime Sketch magazine, and were intended to be read as letters from a local GP’s wife to her childhood friend Robert serving overseas.  'Henrietta’s War' and ' Henrietta Sees It Through' by Joyce Dennys, were published in book form in the mid-1980s. Some people find her brand of humour too arch for words, but I enjoyed the author’s humorous description of conditions in a Devon coastal village in wartime, especially as it’s clearly Budleigh Salterton – or Salterton – as the place might have been better known in those days. Dipping into other writings by Joyce Dennys I came across her autobiographical 'And Then There was One', published in 1983.  A World War One VAD ...

It’s good to see Fairlynch Museum volunteers out and about speaking about their pet subjects, ranging from the Pebblebeds to Favourite Artists.   But Maggie Giraud’s inspection of ‘Something in the Woodshed’ will be rather different from Nicky Hewitt’s talk on the natural beauties of our Commons which I mention  here Maggie, who is involved in cataloguing the Museum’s art collection and preparing the 2016 exhibition on the work of Joyce Dennys, is giving  the second talk in a series held on a monthly basis at Brook Gallery, Exeter, beginning October 2015.  The talk, as described on her website, “tiptoes into the sinister world, where artists have portrayed uncomfortable images of women, and where things are not always as they seem.” How very unsettling! But there are familiar as well as unfamiliar names in the list of artists – Balthus, Bellmer, Degas, Magritte, Manet, Mat...

Fairlynch volunteer Maggie Giraud has just updated her website ( www.talksaboutart.co.uk ) and would like to draw your attention to some of the talks she has booked, which she hopes will interest and entertain you in the coming (colder!) months. Maggie is a locally-based freelance art historian and curator. Her talk ‘Understanding Henri Matisse’ was chosen to round off the Museum’s AGM on 29 April. It was one of many talks which she has given during 2015. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Maggie lists her specialist topics as Renaissance Florence, the early 20th century period in Paris, and Dartington Hall, where she was employed as curator and archivist.  However her talks on art cover a wide range. “The ongoing series at The Castle Hotel, Taunton, ends on 12 November with a new lecture on Francis Bacon who has preoccupied me for a long time,” she writes. “Presenting him coherently is a considerable challenge, but his fame is such now that he cannot be...

To Exeter, where I spent an enjoyable time at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, just wandering around really. Then I found myself in the exhibition 'Quay Views: Exeter Canal and the Exe', where I spotted three watercolours by the Exeter-born artist John Abbott White.    Abbott White, who also practised as a surgeon, painted and sketched various local scenes including the above pen and wash drawing of the old granary at the bottom of Granary Lane in Budleigh Salterton. During his visit to the town he also made a drawing of fishermen and their boats on the beach. Both pictures were bought by the Museum in 1992, thanks to an anonymous donation and a special one-off grant from the then East Devon Council.   “Pictorial representations of Budleigh Salterton in the past are very rare, so every opportunity to obtain works of art has to be taken,” said Museum spokesman Geoffrey Swinyard at the time. “These will enhance the Museum’s collection of local historical ...