Budleigh Past and Present

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It’s not so long ago that the tradition of maypole dancing was revived in East Budleigh. An ancient English tradition which Roger Conant’s family would have enjoyed? Unlikely. In the increasingly puritanical England of the 1640s, maypoles were condemned by the Long Parliament as ‘a Heathenish vanity, generally abused to superstition and wickedness’, and were banned outright, along with Christmas and other ‘ungodly’ practices. Well before then, Roger would have had problems had he tried to introduce it in New England at the settlement of Naumkeag, later to become Salem.  With the arrival of Governor John Endicott and ‘godly’ Puritans in Naumkeag in 1628, such ‘pagan’ practices were viewed with horror.  Shocking news was received by Puritan leaders around that time of May Day events taking place just over 20 miles away from Plymouth Colony, in the settlement once called Merrymount and now known as the town of Quincy. Governor William Bradford in his  History of Pl...

    at  August 19, 2025     Email This BlogThis! Share to X Share to Facebook Share to Pinterest Labels:  Massachusetts ,  Myles Standish ,  Roger Conant No comments: Post a Comment Older Post Home Subscribe to:  Post Comments (Atom) The Salter's Song - with pics  

‘It is usually very difficult to find much to say which will not offend the vigilant eye of the censor,’ wrote Kenneth John Best to his family in May 1915, while serving as an army chaplain during World War I. Even so, he managed to say much about the horrors of war.  In December 1914, while still safe in Egypt and yet to be posted to the front he had expressed his frustration with humanity in a letter to his father. ‘The question always occurs to me, why do men try to reach justice by the sword?’ he asked. ‘Brute force seems to have no connection that I can see with Justice. In this particular case, it may turn out all right – but I hope there will after this be some better means found for settling disputes.’  Later, from the bloodbath of Gallipoli, he wrote: ‘What a mad world this is! I suppose we shall soon come to our senses and settle the matter which might just as well have been settled without the carnage. How much wiser were the Israelites and Philistines when they set...

  Notable among the visitors to East Budleigh’s 2025 Scarecrow Festival on 7/8 June was a figure from the distant past. Born in the village over four centuries ago, a generation later than its better known Sir Walter Raleigh, Roger Conant was very different from Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite courtier. Sailing across the Atlantic to America in around 1623, he founded the Massachusetts city of Salem.   Today, he is seen as a more modest and peace-loving character than many of the country’s European pioneers.  And so, ‘Roger Conant’  had come to the 2025 Scarecrow Festival to preside over its Duck Race, now named after him. Many  visitors to the American city are struck by the sight of Roger Conant’s statue with its tall hat and long cloak, unfortunately sited next to Salem’s Witch Museum. Understandably they think that its founder must have dabbled in the black arts. Some of East Budleigh’s visitors at the weekend probably thought the same.  So ‘Roger Conant’...