Budleigh Past and Present

  'The Conjurer' by the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch (c.1450-1516). Image credit: Wikipedia.  People have always been fascinated by the tricks of conjurers. Budleigh historian Roger Lendon discovered that we had our own celebrated conjurer living in the area and has kindly contributed this article to Budleigh – Past and Present.  I was first alerted to this man when I came across this short piece in the Western Times dated 20th June 1846: Moon, the Conjuror - This celebrated professor of the science and mystery of legerdemain having for some years past settled down at Budleigh Salterton as an agriculturist, is about to limit his practice, and in this day’s paper advertises one of his farms to be let. The farm was Upper West Down Farm which was in the Parish of Littleham and thus not far from his home which was in Knowle according to the East Budleigh tithe apportionment. In the 1851 census Thomas Moon was recorded as having been born in East Budleigh in 1773 and the record