Budleigh Past and Present

  Friend of Fairlynch Museum and founder of Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival Susan Ward, left,  with Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy at a Brook Gallery reception in September 2010    Picture credit: Brook Gallery New acquisitions in the Museum’s display of costumes this year consist of items from the Susan Ward Collection.    When Susan and her husband Charles moved to Budleigh Salterton in 2005 she soon became involved in fundraising for Fairlynch, becoming a Trustee of the Museum's Endowment Fund.   But it was the Literary Festival that she founded which then became her real passion. The first three-day Festival opened on 18 September 2009 with a strong line-up, including Hilary Mantel, H.R.F. Keating, Val McDermid, Simon Brett, the actor Sheila Mitchell and journalist Virginia Ironside. Very sadly, after a long illness, Susan died peacefully at home in Budleigh on 19 June 2012.   Thanks to a thoughtful gesture on...

Time for a coffee and biscuits on arrival for the Devonshire Association visitors, greeted by Friend of Fairlynch Hazel Harland, right.     Fairlynch Museum hosted a visit by members of the Devonshire Association’s East Devon branch on Thursday 11 July. Among its many activities the Association regularly organises all-day excursions to the county’s towns to give members an insight into the history and particular features of a community. This was the first organised visit by DA members to Budleigh Salterton. St Peter’s Church and the long-established Croquet Club as well as the Museum were included on the itinerary.    The visitors were shown various areas of the Museum by volunteers Iris Ansell, Sue Morgan and Margaret Williams.  Museum Secretary Michael Downes told them something of the life and career of Henry Carter FRS, the Victorian physician, geologist and marine sponge expert who himself was a member of the Devonshire Association, ...