Budleigh Past and Present

The summer has finally arrived, the deckchairs are out and it's time for more of my bloggerel.  Young visitors to Fairlynch Museum Martha aged five, on the left, and her six-year-old sister Eva, thought our specially designed deckchairs were a terrific idea, especially after they'd seen the original paintings by Joyce Dennys on display in the museum.  I wonder whether there are any artists out there now, painting today's Budeigh characters so amusingly. Click on the image to make it a bit bigger. 

At a previous post about Fairlynch’s Object of the Month for April 2016 I promised that I would give some background to my pooem at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/fairlynch-museums-object-of-month-for.html   No, it wasn’t an April Fool. A few years ago I wrote the first biography of any length devoted to the life and achievements of Henry Carter FRS, physician, geologist and naturalist, pictured above.  Born in Budleigh Salterton, Carter returned to his “native place” as he calls it in 1862 after travels in Arabia and working as a doctor in India . He is buried in the churchyard of All Saints, East Budleigh . Carter was internationally known by his contemporaries for his research into marine sponges, but it was for his work as a geologist that the Royal Society elected him as a Fellow in 1859. There is evidence to show that his geologising had begun while he was still a boy, as he explored ...

Fairlynch Museum was glad to be able to help out one of our sister museums in Devon when the fragment of flag shown here was lent for an exhibition at Topsham. A model of HMS Terror on display at Topsham Museum  The item is cherished as a possible relic from HMS Terror, the bomb vessel constructed for the Royal Navy by the Topsham shipbuilder Robert Davy. Some of my American readers who know their history will recognize the name of this vessel as belong to one of th ose ships which took part in the unhappy Anglo-American conflict of 1812-14. It was during that war that the White House was burned down by the British.  HMS Terror, under her captain, John Sheridan, took part in various actions against the Americans including the bombardment of Stonington, Connecticut in August 1814, and the Battle of Baltimore the following month.  HMS Terror th...

I learnt recently that a visit to Fairlynch is being planned for local schoolchildren. They’re keen to find out about World War Two, so naturally I investigated what our museum might have in the way of things to look at and study. Various items are listed in the records, including a gas mask, a helmet, a stirrup pump, a ration book, and loads of photos, all stored away and waiting to be shown off to visitors. One rather fine item which is not listed – I found it on the internet – is a copy of this ship’s crest, currently for sale on Ebay but at a specially discounted price for Fairlynch after an approach was made to the owner.  The image is of a parrot or popinjay perc hed on a trident. The ship in question was HMS Polruan, a Bangor-class minesweeper launched on 18 July 1940. Bangor-class warships were named after HMS Bangor, and all Royal Navy ships of that class were named after British coastal towns. During WW2 many...