AROUND THE TOWN AND OVER THE POND - 01: 'THE TWINS THAT NEVER WERE'

A walk around Budleigh Salterton to interest transatlantic visitors. Every so often there’s a diversion which may inspire you to visit places like East Budleigh, Exeter, Sidmouth, Colyton or even places in the United States and Canada.    

The walk is set out in parts. Here’s the first part, based on the section from Budleigh Salterton Information Centre to the Raleigh Wall, and called 'The Twins that never were'. 

Summary: How Budleigh Salterton almost became twinned with a town in the USA.

 

Image credit: Christopher Wroten

Did you know that Budleigh Salterton, according to Wikipedia for several years until the mention mysteriously disappeared, had an American twin? Don’t believe me? Take a look at this fine road sign on the approach to Brewster, Cape Cod. 'TWINNED WITH BUDLEIGH SALTERTON, ENGLAND', it announces. But I wonder whether it’s still there.

 

The name of our alleged sister-town on Cape Cod has nothing to do with the brewing industry. The town was named in honour of Elder William Brewster – depicted above in an imagined portrait from the book ‘The Romantic Story of the Mayflower Pilgrims: And its place in the life of to-day’ (1911).  

Brewster was one of the leaders – or elders – of the group of Pilgrim Fathers who emigrated to America in 1620 on the ‘Mayflower’.

Image credit: Wikimedia

Born between 1560 and 1566 in Scrooby, Nottinghamshire, he studied at Cambridge University. He may have attended lectures at Emmanuel College, shown above in this 1690 engraving by the artist David Loggan. It was a centre of Puritan thinking among those people who were not happy with what they saw as Papist influences in the Church of England.

 

The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots by the French artist Abel de Pujol (1785-1861). Image credit: Wikimedia

Brewster was later employed as a minor civil servant to William Davison, one of Queen Elizabeth I's secretaries of state. He returned to Scrooby after Davison fell from favour, having been blamed by Elizabeth for the execution of the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots.

Scrooby Manor house. 

Image credit: www.mayflowerhawaii.org 

Back in Nottinghamshire, Brewster became one of the original members of the religious Separatist congregation that rejected the Church of England’s doctrines and rituals. They met in a building at Scrooby Manor House. The group’s first attempt to emigrate to Holland in 1607 landed Brewster and several others in prison, but he succeeded in the following year, working as a printer in Leiden.

'Embarkation of the Pilgrims' by Robert W. Weir. Protestant pilgrims are shown on the deck of the ship Speedwell before their departure for the New World from Delft Haven, Holland, on July 22, 1620. William Brewster is holding the Bible.  Image credit:  Wikimedia.

Eventually, persecution of the group in Holland forced Brewster and others to emigrate to America on the Mayflower. They settled in what became known as Plymouth Colony where they could practise their version of the Protestant religion in freedom. Brewster lived to be nearly 80, dying in 1644.

An aerial view of Brewster, Cape Cod. Image credit: Frances Carter

Budleigh Salterton and Brewster were never perfectly formed twins of course. Brewster's population of almost 9,600 - growing to a staggering  25,000 in the holiday season - was more than twice as big as Budleigh's (4,805 in 2001).

 

But there are similarities: both are coastal towns, have elegant homes built in many cases respectively for retired Indian Army officers in Budleigh and former sea captains in Brewster. The top photo shows Rosehill on Budleigh's Exmouth Road, home of Colonel Clarence Preston Gunter CIE, OBE, RE. Below is the Captain Elijah Cobb House, now Brewster's museum. 

Both towns have fine golf courses, and are near working corn mills. Oh, and they both have high house prices.

So, what are the origins of the Budleigh-Brewster link, now dropped from Wikipedia’s information about both towns.

 

It was proposed in 2000 following contact made by Brewster residents Janine Gatek, an art gallery owner, and teacher Joan Orr with Budleigh’s Deputy Mayor Frances Carter. By March the following year, the Easter visit of ‘Two ambassadors from America’ was being heralded in the Budleigh Journal.

 

Brilliant sunshine and a warm welcome from Budleigh residents greeted the American pair during their stay at Frances Carter’s home in April 2001. Outside the Longboat Café, Budleigh Salterton Lions’ President Geoff Paver gave them a pennant to take back to their local Lions Club.

They met PC Kim Chapman, Budleigh’s ward officer, pictured above, who gave them a letter to take back to Brewster’s Board of Selectmen – the equivalent of a town council. Later they were given an insight into Budleigh’s history at Fairlynch Museum by Priscilla Hull, one of its founders. ‘It’s great here,’ said Janine Gatek. ‘The hospitality we have been given has been tremendous everywhere we have been. I really like the town.’  

 

‘Brewster poised to adopt twin town in England’ announced The Cape Codder newspaper of 4 May. A few days later The Cape Cod Times reported that more than 500 voters at Brewster’s Annual Town Meeting unanimously approved the symbolic joining of the two towns.

 

The scene just after United Airlines Flight 175 hits the South Tower on 11 September 2001. Image credit: Wikipedia

But no signing and sealing of official scrolls ever took place and in time the twinnng idea fell by the wayside. The tragedy of the Twin Towers in September that year put paid temporarily to transatlantic air travel, and the link between Budleigh Salterton and Brewster became for most people a distant memory, revived only by occasional references to it on the internet.

 

A further attempt was made in 2009, reported by the online Cape Cod Today, but without success.

So the Budleigh-Brewster twinning remains just as a curiosity in Anglo-American history. Worth recording for posterity and for the lovers of both rather special towns.   

Let's head off to The Raleigh Wall.  

Click on the link to continue in Part 2 at https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2024/05/around-town-and-over-pond-02-boyhood-of.html