Budleigh Past and Present

I'm writing to you, dear Sir Walter, Poet, scholar, soldier, courtier, Trying my best to write in verse Although you’ll think it must be worse Than any lines you wrote to please the Queen; Nay, worse than any you have ever seen. I write to you from Salterton, That place where you had lots of fun Beside the sea four centuries ago, And where the view down on the beach Goes further than the eye can reach, To blood-red sunsets, distant lands of fame, Of plants and beasts and such wild things and ships As we can only dream of. Yet your name For many people stands for nothing more Than bikes, roll-ups, and naturally chips. And Budleigh, with its pebbles known as buns, Down where that naughty lively river Otter runs Into the sea, is, so many say, A town of wealthy pensioners, nothing more, “Famed for its elderly population” reads Wikipedia, for Long ago that ‘witty’ playwright Noel Coward Described it as a place of potted palms and monumental bores Who live life

Click on http://www.brewstercapecod.org/ and you will see a photo of Budleigh beach. So Budleigh has a sister-town on Cape Cod! That was news to me, but then I'm just what they call a 'blow-in' having moved to Budleigh in East Devon only in March 2008. This is the view of the famous pebble beach looking east towards Otter Head, the view that everyone in Budleigh knows. And this is the café at Steamer Steps at the western end of the beach. They sell nice crab sandwiches here. The beach huts are a special feature of Budleigh Salterton as you can see from the models and the picture on sale in this High Street shop. Another regular feature of the beach during the summer is our local fisherman who sells his catch direct from the boat. The mackerel is good value and really delicious. As you can see from the blue sign, this is also the approach to Budleigh's naturist beach which lies 500 metres west of Steamer Steps. But its pebbles or nodules as they are properly known are th