Budleigh Salterton

Budleigh Salterton
Devon
The seafront at Budleigh Salterton
Location
Grid reference:	SY066818
Location:	50°37’42"N, 3°19’14"W
Data
Population:	4,805  (2001)
Postcode:	EX9
Dialling code:	01395
Local Government
Council:	East Devon
Parliamentary constituency:	East Devon

Budleigh Salterton is a small town on the south coast of Devon, 15 miles south of Exeter. It is situated within the "East Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty".

Budleigh stands at the mouth of the River Otter, where the estuary forms an area of reed bed and grazing marsh, an important haven for migratory birds and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

About the town

The sea front, looking east towards Sidmouth

The town is almost entirely residential, with most businesses being situated in the High Street, Fore Street and Station Road (at the High Street end). It came bottom in a 2003 survey of towns giving value for money to homebuyers. Near the town centre is a park, known as The Green. Budleigh Salterton is also home to East Devon Golf Club.

Fairlynch Museum is a small museum housed in a listed thatched building. It covers the history and geology of the region, and offers exhibitions and a local archive.

Budleigh is on the South West Coast Path, with clifftop routes eastward to Sidmouth and westward to Exmouth. The pebble beach and cliffs are part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site, although this is an arrangement of geographical convenience, rather than being correct from the geological time point of view. Much of the geology is Triassic, represented by bunter sandstone (Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds) and the area is also known for the radioactive nodules containing vanadium and uranium in red marl at Littleham Cove.

Budleigh Salterton in popular culture

The Boyhood of Raleigh (1871)

Blue plaque commemorating Sir John Everett Millais

Near Budleigh was the boyhood home of Sir Walter Raleigh, and celebrated as such in a painting by Edward Millais, but it more familiarly turns up in satire.

• In the song "(Now) I know (where I'm going) our kid" by the parody group the Shirehorses, Budleigh Salterton is cited satirically as being on the road to Scotland.
• The character Giles Wemmbley-Hogg portrayed by Marcus Brigstocke in the radio programme Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off lives in Budleigh Salterton.
• Budleigh Salterton was used as a location for Jeremy Clarkson to review the Bentley Continental GT in a 2003 episode of Top Gear. He described the name Budleigh Salterton as the sort of name an owner of a Bentley Continental GT would have - and "Britain's most overpriced, dreary place."
• In an episode of Blackadder the Third, after one of his failed get-rich-quick schemes, Mr E Blackadder exclaimed "I don't believe it! Goodbye Millionaire's Row. Hello Room 12 of the Budleigh Salterton Twilight Rest Home for the Terminally Short of Cash!"
• Referred to in Blithe Spirit - "What ever is wrong with Budleigh Salterton?"
• Budleigh Salterton is referenced briefly in an episode of Monty Python's Flying Circus, "The Cycling Tour".
• Budleigh Salterton was mentioned in an episode of Granada Television's adaptation/dramatisation of the Sherlock Holmes story Charles Augustus Milverton (aired under the title, "The Master Blackmailer") as an intended honeymoon location. In the original account by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, however, this location (as well as the entire scene) was never mentioned, so it cannot be relied upon as canon under Holmes lore.

Festivals and events

• Gala Week – a series of fundraising events, organised by the Lions, held during the last week in May.
• Festival of Music and Drama – the inaugural festival took place in August 2005, and is now an annual event.
• Budleigh Salterton Jazz Festival - held annually in April.
• Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival - held annually in September since 2009
• Active Budleigh Festival - sporting activities and events.
• Budstock - a bi-annual one-day festival featuring local bands, usually at the beginning of August.
• Sundown - an annual 3 day computer arts demoparty, held every September since 2005.
• Imperial College Operatic Society visits Budleigh Salterton for two weeks in late July / early August (every year since 1966) to perform a musical.
• Christmas Day swim on Christmas morning
• Boxing day raft race down the River Otter, residents and groups make rafts and launch them down the river from Otterton to Budleigh

Sport

• Football: Budleigh Salterton FC

Jurassic Coast

The Jurassic Coast stretches over a distance of 95 miles, from Orcombe Point near Exmouth, in the west, to Old Harry Rocks on the Isle of Purbeck, in the east.

The coastal exposures along the coastline provide a continuous sequence of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous rock formations spanning approximately 185 million years of the Earth's history. The Jurassic Coast contains a large range of important fossil zones.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Budleigh Salterton)

• Otter Valley Association
• Otter Valley Weather
• Budleigh Salterton: geology of the Wessex Coast
• East Devon Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust
• Budleigh Salterton Croquet Club

References

Books

• Cooper, Andrew (2007). East Devon Pebblebed Heaths: 240 Million Years in the Making. Impress Books. ISBN 978-0-9556239-0-5. 
• Ford, Alan (2002). Mark Rolle: His Architectural Legacy in the Lower Otter Valley. Otter Valley Association. ISBN 978-0-9507534-5-4. 
• The Jurassic Coast Trust (2003). A Walk Through Time, the Official Guide to the Jurassic Coast. Coastal Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9544845-0-7.