Budleigh Past and Present

The River Otter is always a popular subject for artists and the view of Otter Head is a favourite.   Mark Gibbons is a professional painter who specialises in West Country moorland and coastal landscapes. His 1980 watercolour of the River Otter at Budleigh Salterton was one of the recent lots at Piers Motley Auctions in Exmouth. Just over two years ago the artist and his wife Angela featured as contestants in the ITV programme ‘May the Best House Win.’   The subsequent media coverage led to increased interest in his paintings, which were reported as selling for around £500 each. And the above painting...?   A snip at £50 at the Bicton Street sale on 9 December. Auctioneer Piers Motley said that the winning bid was what he would have expected. For details of further sales click here

Every Christmas Day spectators and swimmers gather on Budleigh beach just before 10.00 am. Or should that be sadists and masochists...? Even the odd dog is welcome to join.  The weather had been stormy in the run-up to Christmas Day and I'd heard rumours that the event might have to be cancelled.  But who would decide? The coastguards in the photo were looking as if they thought everyone was mad.  They told me that the event is spontaneous with no organiser. People just turn up. Here are some people putting on brave faces as 10.00 am approaches.    And they're off! Clearly some people are having second thoughts. Those waves look quite big. Yes indeed. This could have been a big mistake.   The return! For most people that was after a few minutes.   Some people just enjoy showing off.      The crowds break into applause...

    The madness of war: A Swiss shepherd watches a battle on the frontier during World War I from the 1915 edition of Some ‘Frightful’ War Pictures by the celebrated illustrator William Heath Robinson (1872-1944)  Museums up and down the country - indeed throughout the world - will have been bringing their resources to bear on exhibitions marking the centenary of World War I. In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron announced last October that more than £50m has been allocated for a historic commemoration of the centenary of the start of the conflict. The hunt is still on at Fairlynch Museum for Great War stories with a link to Budleigh Salterton or any of the villages of the Lower Otter Valley. Those stories based on experiences of active service are naturally of keen interest, particularly when they reveal private thoughts at variance with the official views promoted by the Government’s propaganda machine. Only a few m

Fairlynch Museum's Local History Group is still seeking people from Budleigh Salterton and surrounding villages with information for the 2014 WWI tribute exhibition

Each year Lord Clinton, Patron of Fairlynch, donates a Christmas tree to the Museum.   Shown left to right getting the tree ready for the Late Night Shopping event on 6 December are Rob Merkel, Roger Sherriff, Andrew Jamieson and Trevor Waddington.   . Lighting up time at Fairlynch The Museum welcomed a steady flow of visitors to match the mulled wine on offer. Mince pies were served of course

  I enjoyed visiting the current exhibition at Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum a few days ago. It’s called ‘West Country to World’s End - The South West in the Tudor Age’ and I’ll write more about it in due course. A well produced book of the same title accompanies the exhibition, which I enjoyed so much that I bought a copy. Budleigh people will admire the impressively life-size portrait by an unknown artist of the area’s great Elizabethan hero Sir Walter Raleigh and his eight-year-old son Walter. On loan from the National Portrait Gallery the work was painted in 1602 when he was enjoying Queen Elizabeth’s favour, and shows in great detail, as the printed commentary explains, the expensive clothes worn by father and son: Sir Walter is wearing a jacket embroidered with seed pearls while the boy’s blue suit is silver-braided.   This link on the excellent and useful Wikipedia will take you to see it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WalterRaleighandson.jpg Bu

Martin Watts: no run-of the-mill speaker Living as we do on the coast, it’s all too easy to think that Devon’s all about seaside holiday resorts, smugglers’ coves, sea shanties and swashbuckling nautical heroes of the past. So the subject of a talk on 26 November in Knowle Village Hall was well chosen by the Otter Valley Association, given the importance of mill power over the centuries in our corner of the West Country.    And they couldn’t have chosen a better speaker than Martin Watts from Cullompton. One of only thirteen practising millwrights listed in the Mills section of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, he was able to draw on his many years’ experience as a miller and student of mills since the 1960s. With an impressive range of slides and a seemingly endless supply of facts about rivers, leats, millstones, gearing, overshot and undershot wheels he kept his 60-strong audience fascinated b

Mulled wine in the Museum, mulled cider in a marquee just opposite in Mackerel Square, with live music to listen to and chorizo casserole to warm you up...   and lots more going on in the High Street including the traditional carol-singing of course. You can’t complain that Budleigh isn’t doing its best to cater for all tastes at the Late Night Shopping event on 6 December, from 6.00 to 8.00 pm. Budleigh in Business is hosting the marquee in Mackerel Square , pictured above. The location seems particularly apt, being the town’s market place in the 18th century. Newly formed in 2012 and now boasting 70+ members, Budleigh in Business describes itself as a group of like minded people dedicated to developing the businesses and prosperity of Budleigh Salterton and the surrounding area by supporting the town and helping business thrive.      With ‘Buy Local’ as the theme, BiB is planning its second Food & Drink Festival which is returning in 2014 from 24 to 26 October follo