Budleigh Past and Present

Continued from https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2024/05/around-town-and-over-pond-02-boyhood-of.html AROUND THE TOWN AND OVER THE POND 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 third part: At the Raleigh Wall.   0.3    ‘ OF BIKES, POTATOES, PIPES, PAINTINGS AND OTHER MYTHS'       Image credit: Wikipedia Think of Raleigh and many British people today would think not of Sir John Everett Millais and his dream of Sir Walter’s boyhood but of bikes. The Raleigh bike company was actually named after Raleigh Street in Nottingham. It was founded in 1885 by a Briton, Richard Morris Woodhead, and – of all things – a Frenchman called Paul Eugene Louis Angois.   And before you ask, ye...

  A talk about Roger Conant, founder of Salem, Massachusetts, is being given in the church where his family worshipped over four hundred years ago.  Ian Blackwell is a published author who is noted for his books on the Italian Campaign of World War Two rather than on 17th century history.  However he and his American wife Bonnie have lived for nearly thirty years in Roger Conant's birthplace of East Budleigh, and Bonnie has a special connection to Salem.  Both her parents can trace their roots to the Mayflower, and her father's family lived in Salem for many generations. Her great-grandfather was associated with the city's Peabody Essex Museum and her uncle was involved with the Salem Historical Commission.  In researching the book, as far as possible, Ian has gone back to primary sources written at the time the Conant family lived in East Budleigh, for example documents held by the Devon Heritage Centre and the National Archives.  He has also m...

  Roger Conant’s descendants have been thrilled to learn about the activities of the East Budleigh-based local history group which has been investigating the Devon origins of the founder of Salem, Massachusetts.  Two American visitors, Luli and Frank, flew all the way from California to spend some time in the area over the recent Jubilee weekend. Luli is  Roger Conant's 9x-granddaughter.  The couple learnt about other aspects of East Budleigh. It's the Devon village where in the 16 th  century two important figures in the history of America were born. A third - a naval hero celebrated for helping to establish a landmark in transatlantic communications - is buried there.   Passing Hayes Barton, birthplace of Sir Walter Ralegh on Hayes Lane, a mile or so west of East Budleigh: the word ‘barton’ simply meaning a farm. The house is not open to the public        Vicars Mead on Hayes Lane, where the young Walter Ralegh and Roger Conant ar...

        An update from the studio of Budleigh artist John Washington which will be of special interest both to British Devonians with links to East Budleigh and American residents of Gloucester, Massachusetts.  John is continuing to work on his painting of the celebrated 1625 scene at Fishermen’s Field. That was when Roger Conant intervened and avoided possible bloodshed in the confrontation between fishermen from England’s West Country, led by John Hewes, and Captain Miles Standish, military adviser to the Plymouth Pilgrims: 'I thought you might like to see the fishermen who now have their characters more clearly identified in their faces,' he writes.  'Also, I’ve brought more detail into Tablet Rock at the back as that is such a well known landmark in the context of the story.' 'Next on the left hand side of the painting is to work on the hogshead salt barrels to bring them into line with the rest of the painting - more paint, more  colour, more dept...