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...

  Continued from 17 April 1940:   ‘God bless him’ wrote his mother: Lance Corporal Milne Vickery Meads, Royal Army Ordnance Corps (1917-1940)  https://budleighpastandpresent.blogspot.com/2020/11/ww2-75-17-april-1940-god-bless-him.html         Littleham village: Some of its picturesque cottages have survived    Image credit: www.eastdevonopc.co.uk At first glance, Signalman Dale would not appear to be a local man, judging by the details given by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission: he is recorded as the son of Joseph and Ada Amelia Dale, of Littleham.         But Littleham is only a few miles south-west of Budleigh Salterton, and above, you can see Joseph’s name listed on the town’s War Memorial. In fact the Devon Heritage website states that he was born in Budleigh in the March Quarter of 1921. Joseph is not listed on Exmouth’s War Memorial and Littleham’s bears only two names of war dead from W...