Budleigh Past and Present

Budleigh Hospital Hub project development manager Rob Jones with a jar used for storing live leeches by 19th century doctors. Barts Hospital in London used 100,000 leeches annually to bleed patients A Victorian surgeon’s set of instruments, cupping therapy equipment and  a leech jar are among the artefacts that could be on view for visitors to Budleigh Salterton’s new Health and Wellbeing Hospital Hub. But patients can rest assured that the items will remain in glass cabinets as medical curiosities. If, like me, you tend to visit doctors’ surgeries and hospitals more often than you would like, the chances are you’ll wonder how our various ailments were treated in the past.  And how they’ll be dealt with in the years ahead. CT scans, hip replacements, robotic surgery and laser eye treatment would all seem miraculous to patients and doctors of just a century ago. As for genetic engineering, we can only dream of ho...

The Otter Valley Association and Fairlynch Museum are jointly presenting talks on Saturday 7 February in Budleigh Salterton’s Peter Hall by two distinguished experts who are noted for their stunning images of wildlife. Photographer David Spears' talk is entitled 'Tiny Lives in Rivers and Estuaries.' David filmed with David Bellamy and David Attenborough on a number of projects before later setting up his own production company, Science Pictures.     He uses various imaging tools including high-powered electron microscopes to illustrate the range of organisms that he finds interesting.  Two of his pictures are shown here. He will include brief descriptions of the methodology he uses, but more importantly, show images of organisms which form critical stages in the food chain that sustains the larger and more accessible and familiar animals living in the Otter. Mike Langman, a full-time wildlife illustrator with a passion for birds will presen...

Only a few months ago I ventured outside the Museum to write about a Budleigh Salterton parking problem. Essentially, as you may gather from my post, East Devon District Council wants to charge motorists for what has been up until now a free car park.  Not surprising, many local people are annoyed, especially as local landowner Lord Clinton’s family had bequeathed the car park to Budleigh Salterton’s old urban district council many years ago. So, always on the look-out for the little joys and tribulations that we share with our US cousins in our sister-town of Brewster, I was struck by the annoyed tone of a letter written to the Editor of the Cape Cod Today newspaper.      There’s the same matter of a bequest from many years ago, and a similar accusation of ‘ingratitude’ and ‘betrayal’ – words that have been used to attack our East Devon District Council planners. You can read the letter here

  Poor old Budleigh!   Still smarting from Noel Coward’s stinging lines in his play 'Blithe Spirit' with that memory of an unhappy honeymoon in one of Budleigh Salterton’s grand hotels, where an eager young bride had to endure “potted palms, seven hours of every day on a damp golf-course and a three piece orchestra playing ‘Merry England.’” I thought of Coward’s disappointed young bride, Elvira Condomine, when I saw this sign in Fairlynch Museum.   It’s one of the few existing reminders of one of Budleigh’s grandest hotels, where famous Victorians like the writer Sir Henry Rider Haggard (1856-1925) stayed to find peace and quiet after the turmoil of London. Things have changed a bit of course, but just a few days ago a feature on the much-acclaimed TV adaptation of 'Wolf Hall' in the Western Morning News described its author as living in the “genteel resort of Budleigh Salterton.”   That word ‘genteel’ made me feel uneasy...