Budleigh Past and Present

  Nigel Tucker, with some of the coins from his collection I was saddened to hear recently of the death of Nigel Tucker, founding member of the Woodbury History Society, who helped to make the 2018 exhibition at Budleigh’s Fairlynch Museum such a success.     Putting together a museum exhibition can be incredibly time-consuming, especially if you decide to borrow items from places which insist on the payment of high insurance premiums and the completion of detailed questionnaires to satisfy the bureaucrats and pay the lawyers.     So when the Raleigh 400 exhibition at Fairlynch Museum was staged to honour Sir Walter in the 400 th anniversary year of his death, the generosity of kind friends and neighbours in providing items for display was much appreciated.   Coins of the period were especially interesting. Not only had they been lent thanks to a kind friend of the Museum but they were genuinely local. Maybe Sir Walter himself may have dropped th...

One of the fine panels in the Priscilla Carter Room at Fairlynch produced by local artist and designer Neil Rogers   A rare set of volumes of the Devon Archaeological Society has been offered to Fairlynch, enriching the Museum’s resources in the Priscilla Carter Room. Local resident Jack Major, who has donated the volumes, is delighted that the set will remain together rather than be split up, especially as it includes the much earlier Proceedings of the Devon Archaeological Exploration Society beginning with volume 1 from 1929. Amateur archaeologist George Carter, right, with friends The collection is of considerable interest to Fairlynch as it contains two volumes dating from 1935 and 1936 in which articles by Budleigh Salterton amateur archaeologist George Carter about the pebble mounds of Woodbury Common were published. Professor Chris Tilley, seen here explaining the...

This obituary was published in the Friends of Fairlynch Museum newsletter, Spring 2015 Tony Colmer was born in Merton, near Wimbledon , on 15 March 1940 - the Ides of March, as he would say. The Second World War was still raging and this must have affected his childhood. Tony was an only child but the Colmers were quite a large family and he had several uncles and cousins with whom he kept up all his life. He was particularly proud of his grandfather, Francis Colmer (1873-1967) who was a gifted artist and painted many views of Buckinghamshire where he lived. Many of the latter's paintings are now in the County Museum in Aylesbury.  Tony's interest in archaeology would certainly have been encouraged by his grandfather, whose artistic output included drawings of Saxon weapons found at Bourne End. Tony was brought up in Wimbledon where he went to school and subsequently went to The Queen’s College, Oxford . He studied there from 1959 to 1962, taking a degree in Modern...

High Peak looking west, seen from the Coast Path between Sidmouth and Budleigh Salterton New interpretation panels at High Peak reveal the secrets of this Stone Age site near the South West Coast Path just a few miles east of Budleigh Salterton.   Following the harvesting of the tree crop on High Peak, between Sidmouth and Budleigh Salterton, by Clinton Devon Estates an archaeological investigation of High Peak hill camp was carried out in September 2012 to try and discover more about how this enigmatic site has been used over past centuries.       Friend of Fairlynch and children’s author Jan Oke was one of about a dozen volunteers involved in the dig on alternate days. A member of the Devon Archaeological Society, she responded to an advertisement in its newsletter and found herself working alongside professional archaeologists in a group of half a ...

    Priscilla Hull wearing her insignia as President of Budleigh Salterton Chamber of Commerce Image courtesy of Ray Ambrose ©2008 Randa Creative   Budleigh residents and Friends of Fairlynch Museum were just some of the many people who were saddened to learn of the death of Priscilla Hull on 12 August. A co-founder of the Museum, Priscilla was for many years a prominent member of the community, having been Chairman of Budleigh Salterton Urban District Council and Chairman and President of Budleigh Salterton Chamber of Commerce as well as a Devon County Councillor. She was also a JP, sitting as a magistrate for over 25 years. Priscilla Marjorie Lovelace Carter was born in 1920 in Bombay , where her father George Carter, pictured above, was working for the Indian Civil Service as a District Administrator. He was the son of John Carter, an Exmouth builder responsible for creati...