Budleigh Past and Present

  Above:  'High Seas' by Budleigh Salterton artist Susanna Lance   Fairlynch’s exhibition of paintings inspired by the sea and coastal scenery have been much admired by visitors to the museum.   The display by Budleigh Salterton’s Venture Art Group members was deliberately based on a common theme to complement the Museum’s 2013 show entitled ‘Sea, Salt and Sponges.’ Inevitably the subject was found to have some difficult aspects. Whether painting a river, a lake, a stream or the sea most artists find that water presents one of the most challenging aspects of a landscape for them to master.   'Spume and Sails'     Budleigh artist and gallery owner Susanna Lance would wholeheartedly agree. Seascapes have been her speciality for the last 20 years and she continues to find both frustration and enjoyment in depicting subjects such as waves and ripples or the simple reflections of boats in still waters as in the study...

  The sponge Clathrina Coriacea (Montagu, 1818) was greatly admired by Henry Carter Image credit Fiona Crouch, Marine Biological Association of the UK There’s an awful lot of science in Fairlynch’s 2013 exhibition ‘Sea, Salt and Sponges.’ There’s fearsome-looking medical equipment, a fine display of microscopes and much information about the geology of places ranging from India to Canada , not forgetting Devon of course. Not to mention the surprisingly intricate anatomy of sponges with all those complex chemicals that they produce which are providing useful weapons in the war against cancer and other diseases. But Budleigh scientist and FRS Henry Carter (1813-95) whose bicentenary the Museum is celebrating was an artist in his way. He often shows himself in his writings charmed by the beauty of the marine species that he examined. Of the sponge Clathrina Coriacea (Montagu, 1818), pictured above, which he found on Budleigh beach he wrote “I t veils the dark rock benea...

Museum visitors are often keen to take away a souvenir of an exhibition. This 40-page booklet is an informative guide to the life and achievements of Budleigh scientist Henry John Carter FRS, the main subject of Fairlynch Museum ’s 2013 exhibition ‘Sea, Salt and Sponges.’ Based largely on material from 19th century journals it offers some interesting insights into the Victorian era in which he lived.    There are sections on Carter’s medical career, on his time in southern Arabia , his work in geology and especially his research into sponges for which he is justly celebrated. Much admired by Darwin for his research Carter returned to his home town of Budleigh Salterton after twenty years as a doctor in India . He settled in the family home of The Cottage on Fore Street Hill, better known today as Umbrella Cottage. With a useful timeline to Carter’s life and fascinating images, many in colour and never previously published, the booklet written by Fairlynch Museum’s...

Could this really be the Year of the Sponge? My crazy fantasy at http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/absorbing-read.html about a Budleigh Sponge Day may not have been so crazy after all. I've just read Simon Barnes' piece entitled Unexplored wilderness at the end of the pier in The Times at http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/simonbarnes/article3669027.ece reflecting on the wonderful hidden world of the Cromer Shoal Chalk Reef off the coast of NE Norfolk . Among other strange and beautiful secrets the Reef has yielded "a species of purple sponge new to science." That "new to science" phrase struck a chord, still reeling as I am from having written 70,000 words about Victorian spongiologist Henry Carter FRS (1813-95) as part of my own exploration of 19th century science, a world previously foreign to me. "New to science" was the excited and triumphant clarion-call favoured by Victorian botanists, zoologi...

There's always something going on in Budleigh Salterton in spite of what some meanies say. 'Sponge throwing'? Why not? We'd heard it was a charity event involving local dignitaries, and there was even a rumour that one of them would be getting a soaking, standing in the stocks and wearing his regalia. It was all happening in a local resident's garden with an exhibition set up in a marquee, and bizarrely the day's theme was sponges. Anyway off we went and sure enough there was the dignitary looking pretty wet and bedraggled but smiling away, calling out between sponges "It's all in a good cause! Come on, sponge my face!"   Very sporting of him we thought.   The good cause was the Marine Conservation Society, and the sponge theme was all to do with the bicentenary of the man who used to live in this charming little cottage on Fore Street Hill. It's called Umbrella Cottage, apparently because the porch, now thatch...