Budleigh Past and Present

The summer has finally arrived, the deckchairs are out and it's time for more of my bloggerel.  Young visitors to Fairlynch Museum Martha aged five, on the left, and her six-year-old sister Eva, thought our specially designed deckchairs were a terrific idea, especially after they'd seen the original paintings by Joyce Dennys on display in the museum.  I wonder whether there are any artists out there now, painting today's Budeigh characters so amusingly. Click on the image to make it a bit bigger. 

To Exeter, where I spent an enjoyable time at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum, just wandering around really. Then I found myself in the exhibition 'Quay Views: Exeter Canal and the Exe', where I spotted three watercolours by the Exeter-born artist John Abbott White.    Abbott White, who also practised as a surgeon, painted and sketched various local scenes including the above pen and wash drawing of the old granary at the bottom of Granary Lane in Budleigh Salterton. During his visit to the town he also made a drawing of fishermen and their boats on the beach. Both pictures were bought by the Museum in 1992, thanks to an anonymous donation and a special one-off grant from the then East Devon Council.   “Pictorial representations of Budleigh Salterton in the past are very rare, so every opportunity to obtain works of art has to be taken,” said Museum spokesman Geoffrey Swinyard at the time. “These will enhance the Museum’s collection of local historical ...

The Boyhood of Raleigh   by Sir John Everett Millais, Bt 1870 Photo: © Tate, London 2015 I've been watching members of the Venture Art Group at work on an unusual project, part of the preparations to mark the 400 th anniversary of the death of one of East Devon’s best known historical figures. Sir John Everett Millais’ painting of the young Walter Ralegh and his half-brother Humphrey Gilbert sitting rapt as they listen to an old sailor’s tales is one of Tate Britain’s treasures.  Budleigh Salterton people will tell you that the stone wall in the painting can still be seen today, opposite The Octagon, the building where Millais stayed in 1870.  It seemed only right that this Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece should be displayed in Budleigh’s Fairlynch Museum to celebrate its centenary.  So indeed it was in 1970, shortly after the museum was founded back in July 1967. It was a masterstroke of publicity for the town, with annual visitor n...