Budleigh Past and Present

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 first part, based on the section from  Budleigh Salterton Information Centre to the Raleigh Wall, and called 'The Twins that never were'.  Summary: How Budleigh Salterton almost became twinned with a town in the USA.   Image credit: Christopher Wroten Did you know that Budleigh Salterton, according to Wikipedia for several years until the mention mysteriously disappeared, had an American twin? Don’t believe me? Take a look at this fine road sign on the approach to Brewster, Cape Cod. 'TWINNED WITH BUDLEIGH SALTERTON, ENGLAND', it announces. But I wonder whether it’s still there.   The name of our alleged sister-town on Cape Cod has nothing to do with the brewing i...

Image credit: http://www.henrybeston.org/ I knew nothing of this American writer and naturalist, but news from Budleigh Salterton’s sister-town of Brewster on Cape Cod on the far side of ‘The Pond’ always catches my eye. So I thought I’d like to know more about an illustrated presentation on Beston’s life and work being staged in Brewster. It was given by writer and film maker Don Wilding on 7 November at the Cape Cod Museum of Natural History in Brewster. Of course I should have mentioned it before the event! Preoccupied as we are with Remembrance and the Great War, but, Francophile that I am, I was also interested to learn that after leaving Harvard, Beston took up teaching at the University of Lyon in France. In 1914 he returned to Harvard as an English department assistant, but then came back to Europe, joining  the French army in 1915 and serving  as an ambulance driver. His service at Bois-le-Prêtre and at the Battle of Verdun was descri...

I haven’t yet made it to Budleigh Salterton’s sister town of Brewster on Cape Cod. One day perhaps. Until then I’ll enjoy reading about happenings over there thanks to Google news alerts, including this exhibition by Cape Cod artists.  Like so much of the artwork from that part of the US it’s suggestive of the wild beauty of that intriguing place jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean. Benton Jones, seen above, is the owner of the Millstone Gallery in Brewster. He's an artist in glass with a cosmopolitan background: part Welsh, Norwegian and Italian, he’s married to Jana, a Czech lady.  Sadly, I won’t be able to attend the Reception on 18 July, but I’m sure that Benton and Jana would welcome any of my Devon readers. Click on  http://www.millstonegallery.com/  to see the Gallery's highly informative website.  This is what it says about the artists: Opening reception: Renditions of Plac...

  Matching museums : The Elijah Cobb House in Brewster MA (top photo) will be the Brewster Historical Society’s new home. Image credit Rich Eldred Just over a year ago I wrote here about the ambitions of the Brewster Historical Society to have its own museum.   For those readers in Budleigh Salterton and elsewhere who don’t know about the slightly strange connection with Brewster, it can be summarised as the twinning that never was.  Back in 2001 there were people from both towns who were keen on the idea of a link, but for various reasons nothing was actually signed and sealed. I suppose the obvious reason was the traumatic event of 9/11, which understandably put Americans off the idea of flying. When I moved to Budleigh I was struck not only by the fact that Wikipedia listed Brewster as its twin town but by the numerous similarities between their areas: coastal situation, salt marshes, working flour mills, lots of what seem to be re...

Only a few months ago I ventured outside the Museum to write about a Budleigh Salterton parking problem. Essentially, as you may gather from my post, East Devon District Council wants to charge motorists for what has been up until now a free car park.  Not surprising, many local people are annoyed, especially as local landowner Lord Clinton’s family had bequeathed the car park to Budleigh Salterton’s old urban district council many years ago. So, always on the look-out for the little joys and tribulations that we share with our US cousins in our sister-town of Brewster, I was struck by the annoyed tone of a letter written to the Editor of the Cape Cod Today newspaper.      There’s the same matter of a bequest from many years ago, and a similar accusation of ‘ingratitude’ and ‘betrayal’ – words that have been used to attack our East Devon District Council planners. You can read the letter here

A beautiful visitor to Budleigh's sister-town of Brewster on Cape Cod.  We have kingfishers of course! Photo credit: Ryan Bushby I do take an interest in the wonderful wildlife of Devon, and sometimes I blog about plants and creatures that I’ve photographed. But really I’m a bit of a dunce in such things: not observant enough about detail, and happy to enjoy them at a superficial level. But every so often my eye is caught by a flash of unexpected colour or an exotic-sounding name. Like the Glossy Ibis, a flock of which turned up at Budleigh’s Cricket Club some four years ago and which I wrote about at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2010/09/feathered-friends-are-another-link.html And these things are worth recording on my ‘museum in cyberspace’. After all, Fairlynch’s Priscilla Carter Room does have a display area devoted to the wildlife of the Lower Otter Valley. So I took special note of a recent Google news alert telling ...

    Thinking about the tour of Budleigh Salterton for the Literary Festival that I’m running on 19 September I noticed that our sister-town of Brewster, Massachusetts, has scheduled something similar - but five times bigger. Well, that’s America for you! Actually, all that’s happening is that the Brewster Historical Society is inviting visitors to a ‘Sea Captain’s Tour and Tea’, highlighting 30 historical sites and homes in the Cape Cod town.   But the event takes place five times during the holiday season, and you can enjoy luncheon as an extra, provided by the Candleberry Inn. There are two remaining dates: Thursday 14 August and Thursday 18 September.   Click on http://www.brewsterhistoricalsociety.org/events.html   to find out more. One other big thing about the ‘Sea Captain’s Tour’ is that it is scripted by author Sally Gunning, and based on her acclaimed historical novel The Widow’s War , fi...