Budleigh Past and Present

    With composite materials like carbon fibre and Kevlar being increasingly used in sports equipment manufacture it seems that traditional wooden items will one day be seen as museum pieces. So the cricket bat in the photo and especially that weird-looking hockey stick have been welcomed at Fairlynch Museum .    The Museum’s volunteer Education Officer Amanda Murrell explained that at the end of last summer term staff at the Beacon C of E Primary School in Exmouth were emptying a cupboard in preparation for building work on an extension of the school hall, needed due to an increase in pupil numbers. “Some disused and rather historic hockey sticks and a cricket bat were discovered.   Mrs Lockwood, the Headteacher, kindly donated a hockey stick and the cricket bat to the Fairlynch to add to our collection of resources,”   she said.   “The children were fascinated by the hockey stick which is very different from the sticks they use ...

With several important anniversaries and national events taking place this year Fairlynch's volunteer helpers have had their work cut out choosing appropriate items among the many thousands of items in store at the Museum for its 2012 exhibitions. Inspired by the London Olympics, the costumes team at Fairlynch have come up with a selection of garments from the past which offer an amusing contrast with today's sports clothing, as designed for example for the 2012 Games by Stella McCartney. Some of the costumes on display recall the long history of Budleigh Salterton's many sporting groups. The Croquet Club, for example, one of the oldest of its kind in Britain, is well represented at Fairlynch. And a golfing figure in the exhibition should remind us that the East Devon Golf Club was founded way back in 1902, visited over the years by many celebrities including the future Edward VIII in 1921.  The mod...