Budleigh Past and Present

This banjo-player was giving a musical welcome to Budleigh Farmers' Market when I went to see how it had settled into its new location in the Rolle Mews car park. Last Friday 29 January marked the town's first Farmers' Market of 2010, and it was fitting that the new decade should begin on an uplifting note for producers and customers, with a change of venue which seemed to be universally approved by everyone I met. Gerald Sweetland, from Bovey's Down Farm near Colyton, couldn't have been more pleased in the new surroundings. "In the old location at the Brook Road car park we were stuck next to the public lavatories. There's no comparison," he told me. Clive Gammon, from Tracey Mill trout farm in Honiton, was just as happy. He'd noticed lots of new customers that morning. "In the old location even many of the locals didn't know where we were," he said. Dave Johnson, who runs Norsworthy Goats dairy products with his wife Marilyn near Cr...