Budleigh Past and Present

  The statue of Roger Conant, by sculptor Henry Kitson, completed in 1911, stands outside Salem’s Witch Museum.    Photo credit: John Andrews It’s been a tough time for statues, especially in 2020. Many of them must be wondering whose turn it will be next, to be unceremoniously toppled from their plinth.   But a year or so ago, a group of East Budleigh residents decided that they wanted to honour Roger Conant, the mill owner’s son who left England in 1623 to found the city of Salem. How the Conant family mill in East Budleigh, sadly demolished in the early 20 th  century,  might have looked. Frontispiece illustration from  Upper Canada Sketches  by Thomas Conant, Toronto: William Briggs 1898 And a mini version of Salem’s statue, perhaps located near the Conant family mill, seemed an obvious tribute.   The unveiling of the statue of Sir Walter Raleigh in East Budleigh, ...

  Continued from  https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/06/history-in-art-arms-and-men.html A purported portrait of Myles Standish, allegedly painted in 1625, first published in 1885.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myles_Standish From Plymouth to Gainsborough and from Southampton to Scrooby, towns all over England have been anticipating Mayflower 400, with plans to mark what has been seen as a historic moment four centuries ago when the Plymouth Pilgrims arrived in the New World and set up their Massachusetts colony.  After so much hard work to prepare pageants and exhibitions the disruption and postponement of events caused by Covid 19 is being  keenly felt. Myles Standish Way, Chorley Image credit: Chorley Council Most of the Pilgrims came from the East of England – none was from Devon. But Chorley in Lancashire was particularly proud of its link with the  Mayflower  through Captain Miles Standi...