Budleigh Past and Present

Having written a history of Fairlynch in 2017 I naturally volunteered a year later to review a similar publication which tells the story of the Baptist Church in our town. The subjects are alike in many ways: both museum and church are attractive 19 th century local landmarks. Being listed buildings they both present expensive headaches of maintenance; as institutions serving the local community both have had their ups and downs over the years. Baptist minister Revd. Graham Wise’s account of the church and its people is an enjoyably readable paperback which is a valuable addition to Budleigh's local history studies. A history of the church was first published in 1983. This latest version provides an update for the 175 th anniversary which it celebrated in 2018. The original Temple Methodist Church, with Ash Villa (left) which was demolished to make room for the car parking area  There have been Baptist Christians in Budleigh since...

  I enjoyed visiting the current exhibition at Exeter’s Royal Albert Memorial Museum a few days ago. It’s called ‘West Country to World’s End - The South West in the Tudor Age’ and I’ll write more about it in due course. A well produced book of the same title accompanies the exhibition, which I enjoyed so much that I bought a copy. Budleigh people will admire the impressively life-size portrait by an unknown artist of the area’s great Elizabethan hero Sir Walter Raleigh and his eight-year-old son Walter. On loan from the National Portrait Gallery the work was painted in 1602 when he was enjoying Queen Elizabeth’s favour, and shows in great detail, as the printed commentary explains, the expensive clothes worn by father and son: Sir Walter is wearing a jacket embroidered with seed pearls while the boy’s blue suit is silver-braided.   This link on the excellent and useful Wikipedia will take you to see it at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WalterRaleighandson...

  Christine Lee is one of Britain ’s outstanding figurative sculptors.   She’s also a Friend of Fairlynch and it was her friendship with the Museum’s late President that prompted the exhibition of her most recent work in Budleigh. Her best known creation is the extraordinary fountain, over five metres high, which stands in front of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in the centre of Stratford-upon-Avon . The work was inaugurated by Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip on 8 November 1996.   Sculpted in stainless steel and brass it depicts two swans, wings outstretched, rising in flight. “Grounded yet soaring” is how Christine’s work has been described, and that’s certainly how you’d see her sculpture of two angels entitled ‘Compassion’ currently on view in St Peter’s Church.   Winged like her Stratford swans, this latest piece is very different. At just over two metres it’s an approachable piece for the viewer. There’s a warmth and a humanity about it ...

Above: East Budleigh ’s All Saints Church where Ambrose Stapleton was the vicar for 58 years until 1852 Mention of Budleigh’s smuggling past in a previous post at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/dreaming-of-smugglers.html   reminded one of my readers of further stories about Ambrose Stapleton. Former resident of the town Meg Peacocke wrote to tell me of how East Budleigh ’s celebrated ‘smuggling vicar’ featured in a local amateur dramatics production during World War Two.   In around 1940 her father the children’s author Rodney Bennett started or took over a drama society in East Budleigh . Participants were keen, she writes, but he soon discovered that their performances based on a written script were wooden.   He therefore experimented with improvisation based on local material, so that actors might speak more freely and in their own idiom - “an early Mike Leigh?” wonders Meg. One story which the group developed concerned Ambrose Stapl...