Budleigh Past and Present

Screening cranberries at Isaac Cahoon’s bog in Brewster, Cape Cod, in 1892. Photographer Cornelius Chenery I've been meaning for some time to mention in these pages an inspiring project launched back in April by our friends in Brewster, MA. 'Brewster in Black and White' is an online digital archive of 45 remarkable photos which give an insight into life in our sister-town at the turn of the 20th century. I am grateful to the Brewster Historical Society for permission to reproduce these three images. This photo, taken around 1900, shows how works for extracting salt from seawater lined Brewster’s shore in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Here in East Devon also, our town's original name of Salterne testified to the importance of the local salt industry. Salt was once manufactured in large salt pans at the mouth of the River Otter. The salt works were owned in medieval times by the monks of the priory at the nearby village of Otterton, the salt was transported b...