Budleigh Past and Present

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...

Budleigh Salterton is not generally spoken of as having been officially honoured by many royal visitors who stayed in the town, although HRH The Prince of Wales - later to become Edward VIII -  is recorded as having visited the town in 1914 and some years later, in May 1921, he played on the East Devon Golf Club's course.   However, judging by what the author R.F. Delderfield wrote in his essay 'Budleigh Salterton and Mrs.Simpson', published in his Overture for Beginners (1970) it's likely that after 1936 the town would not have wanted to remember that particular visitor.   And the romantic but furtive walks made by the late Diana, Princess of Wales along Budleigh beach, as described in Anna Pasternak's book Princess in Love , were never publicised by local residents. Nearby Sidmouth on the other hand boasts of its past glories associated with Queen Victori...

The photo above of Scott's Northern Party is one of the items being auctioned in London on 30 March 2012 by Bonhams. Seen left to right are: Harry Dickason, Victor Campbell, George Abbott, Raymond Priestley, Murray Levick and Frank Browning.  The six men are standing outside the entrance to the ice cave in which they have just spent the 1911-1912 Antarctic Winter in darkness. The photo was taken on 24 September 1912. Photo credit: Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge The tragic death of Scott of the Antarctic and his four companions a century ago has stirred massive interest in the 1910 – 1913 'Terra Nova' expedition. Both the personalities of those early polar explorers and the equipment that they used - primitive by today's standards - have raised questions ranging from the nature of their heroism to the value of the scientific observations that they recorded. Keen interest from visitors and high commendation from polar experts ...

Following the Fairlynch Winter Talk about R.F. Delderfield by his biographer Marion Lindsey-Noble on 12 March comes a colourful and informative display at the Museum about the East Devon writer, part of the centenary celebrations to mark his birth on 12 February 1912. Some of the novels by this prolific author are shown above.  Delderfield loved this area. Many of his novels such as A Horseman Riding By are set in East Devon. In later life he was a prominent defender of  Woodbury Common, pictured above, when it was threatened by development. He was an early supporter of 'the right to roam.' "The people of East Devon have, for generations, considered themselves to possess this right and I for one have walked and ridden over it, without challenge, since I was a boy back in 1924," he is quoted in Margaret Wilson's book A Woodbury Triumph (2004). The proposal to develop its 500 acres for use as a golf course, was not, he stated, the provision ...