Devon's Great Explorers
Above: Cllr Tom Wright, Mayor Budleigh Salterton, congratulates 'Sir Walter Raleigh' and the Fairlynch Fancies on winning 1st prize in their categoryAs you know Budleigh Carnival is happening on the...
View ArticleShakespeare in Salterton: The Tempest
A much-loved Shakespeare play performed in a Budleigh garden at the home of Fairlynch Museum’s co-founder Joy Gawne by a troupe of enthusiastic local actors… What more would you want for a Saturday...
View ArticleFacing Budleigh's Past and Present
Photo by Lynne Lovatt, Christmas Eve 2011 from the Rolle flats in Budleigh and posted in Facebook's Budleigh - Past and PresentWell, the sun has risen on a new year and it’s time for a change! I’ve...
View ArticleTracking Budleigh's past at Fairlynch Museum
Colin Yeats, left, and Leo Dolling with children from Budleigh’s St Peter’s SchoolTwo former British Railways employees were kind enough to welcome nearly 30 children from St Peter’s CofE School during...
View ArticleThe Baptist Church in Budleigh Salterton 1843-2018
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...
View ArticleA limerick: Jack Rattenbury’s escape
An East Devon smuggler called JackOne evening came under attack.But he proved himself wilyIn behaving most slyly.Of escaping he’d developed the knack. © Michael Downes 2014This painting by Peter...
View ArticleAnother 50 years of Imperial's Budleigh shows?
This year is the 50th anniversary of Imperial Productions performing shows in Budleigh Salterton. Its name has gone through various changes over the years, but the gifted performers who’ve been...
View ArticleDefending the Ypres Salient: Sidney Alfred Demant 12 June 2015
This is a post which originally appeared on my Great War at Fairlynch blog, which you can find via Google. I found that Facebook did not like linking to the site because apparently the automatons...
View ArticleFrom Bushey to Budleigh: The life and death of painter and illustrator Sir...
I wrote the following piece in 2014, and it first appeared at http://fairlynchgreatwar.blogspot.com/, hence my thoughts about the German-born Herkomer, split between love of his native Bavaria and his...
View ArticleArtist Dorothy Bradshaw (1897-1986)
Dorothy Bradshaw's Fairlynch by Night Like her fellow-artist Cecil Elgee and other Budleigh residents associated with Fairlynch such as museum co-founder Priscilla Hull, Dorothy Bradshaw was brought up...
View ArticleSyons of the Tymes
I think it's time for some sober scholarship, as opposed to pub crawling for Raleigh 400 - though there's more of that to come. Two rather different houses with the same name, both in the Georgian...
View ArticleSir Walter Raleigh and Music
Professor Ivan RootsBack in 2009, the late and great Ivan Roots, Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University, was kind enough to give a talk in Budleigh Salterton about Sir Walter Raleigh’s...
View ArticleAre you on the Raleigh 400 list?
Below is a rather long list of organisations which have been contacted in relation to Raleigh 400 – marking the 400th anniversary of the death of Sir Walter Raleigh. Some of them are actively...
View ArticleSpicing up Salterton
Not many people know why our little town of Budleigh was, according to the author R.F. Delderfield, formerly known as The Curry.Fairlynch Museum hopes to explain the reason in the not too distant...
View ArticleRaleigh’s New World: Hunting Sir Walter among the alligators
Above: How Native Americans coped with alligators 400 years ago Florida in August… Disneyland and beaches, hurricanes and alligators. Maybe it wasn’t the best time to visit the Sunshine State. It was...
View ArticleGet Kids Out Learning at Fairlynch
Fairlynch has teamed up with an educational organization which we hope will result in more children visiting the Museum, making an afternoon at Fairlynch a truly enriching family experience. And it...
View ArticleEchoes of Poldark in Budleigh's past
Just to prove that I'm not totally gripped by Raleighmania, and that I do occasionally do other things like watching TV soaps, here’s an informative piece about a Budleigh character who raised a few...
View ArticleCheers, Sir Walter! My pub crawl in the great Elizabethan's footsteps (2)
Carrying on from Cheers, Sir Walter! (Part 1)So, across the Irish Sea we go, to land at Youghal, a seaside resort at the mouth of the River Blackwater in Ireland’s County Cork. It’s where Raleigh made...
View ArticleCheers, Sir Walter! My pub crawl in the great Elizabethan's footsteps (1)
The Sir Walter Raleigh pub, East Budleigh I’m writing on a more refreshing note after all that scholarly stuff about 17th century pamphlet wars, which you can read about hereThis time my search for Sir...
View Article1618-2018: Some things never change
Grapple with the character of Sir Walter Raleigh and you’ll find him difficult to pin down. He displays so many facets, and inspired so many myths in later centuries. Some of the changes came with age...
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