Exmouth A Cappella are performing a special free concert on Sunday 21st September. They’ll be singing on the lawn in front of the historic museum building on the final day of Budleigh's Literary Festival.
The ladies choir will be performing a variety of songs from different eras, both upbeat and ballads, weather permitting , in their trade mark unaccompanied four-part-harmony.
The Fairlynch Museum’s Chairman, Trevor Waddington said, “We’re delighted to be welcoming the choir to our museum. They have a wonderful musical reputation and we look forward to what promises to be a wonderful concert”.
The choir was started in 2005 and relaunched as Exmouth A Cappella in 2020. There are currently about 30 members.
Their musical director Valerie Harvey explained, “Throughout the year we sing at a variety of venues in the local area, including at Sidmouth Folk Festival. Over the years the we’ve won awards for our singing and we are always looking for new members”.
The choir can be contacted via their webpage www.exmouthacappella.co.uk .
The free concert begins at 2.30pm on the lawn in front of the Fairlynch Museum, 27 Fore Street, Budleigh Salterton, EX9 6NP

Fairlynch's popular Coffee Time Talks begin a new season next month, so save these dates to meet friends and hear some enthralling presentations in Budleigh Salterton's Peter Hall (behind St Peter's Church) on the first Wednesday of the month.

Doors open at 10.30 for refreshments, with talks beginning at 11.00am. Entry costs £4.00 for Friends of Fairlynch and £6.00 for other members of the public. 

As always, the subjects are varied so hopefully there will be something to interest everybody. Further details about each talk are given on this site under 'Events'.

Wednesday 3rd September 2025: The Siver Greyhound: Life as Her Majesty's Messenger.
Speaker Peter Hearn
Wednesday 1st October 2025: Beryl Cook. A Distinctive Devon Artist.
Speaker Marilyn Bishop
Wednesday 5th November 2025: Kinder Transport. The part Devon played in the escape from Nazi persecution. Speaker Stewart Raine

Wednesday 3rd December 2025: A Tudor Christmas.
Speaker Rosemary Griggs
Wednesday 7th January 2026: The Land Army in Devon.
Speaker Becks Pearson
Wednesday 4th February 2026: A unique Budleigh Artist.
Speaker Brenda Thomas
Wednesday 4th March 2026: The South West Coastal Footpath
Speaker David Westcott
Wednesday 1st April 2026: TBC

This year's Angela and Tony Colmer Prize for excellence in Local Archaeology has been awarded to 21 year old Exeter University graduate Phoebe Holland. Fairlynch chairman Trevor Waddington gave Ivybridge-based Phoebe a cash prize of £100, a certificate and our warm congratulations for her outstanding research on rock art and the adoption of prehistoric monuments by early Christians on the edge of Dartmoor.

The prize, awarded annually by the Fairlynch Museum in Budleigh Salterton and Exeter University was set up in honour of benefactors Tony Colmer and his wife Angela. Until Angela’s death in 2007 and Tony’s in 2011 they worked tirelessly for the Fairlynch Museum, developing the archaeology collection and championing the area’s history.

Trevor Waddington, said, “We pride ourselves on our archaeology gallery and it is so important to see new work on the area’s past revealing fresh secrets. The award both encourages a new generation of archaeologists and pays tribute to the work that Angela and Tony did for the museum."

Phoebe said, “I’m particularly interested in the prehistoric story of Devon and Dartmoor in particular. I did a lot of work revealing evidence of rock art and how 3-D modelling can identify significant new data."

The university promotes rigorous scientific methodology in archaeological investigation and teaches the use of new technologies available to help with recording and analysis of ancient artefacts and structures. Phoebe’s dissertation was titled “More Than Meets the Eye: Using 2D and 3D Digital Techniques to Explore and Document Prehistoric Rock Art and Early Medieval Sculpture in Southwest Britain." With the technology, she was able to detect the addition of crosses to some standing stones, etching that is now so faint, it had previously been unobserved. 

Phoebe would like to use the technology to make archaeology more accessible to the public, perhaps in the museum or education sector. We wish her a successful and rewarding career!

 
History came full circle in Budleigh Salterton when the town’s Fairlynch Museum hosted a party from Salem in Massachusetts this week.
 
The group was tracing the footsteps of one of the area’s most famous sons, Roger Conant, born in East Budleigh in 1592. After sailing to America in 1623 he settled in Massachusetts and founded Salem, north of Boston. He developed a reputation as a peacekeeper, resolving many of the issues that faced the early settlers.
 
In recent years, there’s been a growth of interest in Conant and Karen Scalia from Salem Food Tours led the group visiting East Devon to get a sense of the region's heritage. Friends of Fairlynch Michael and Anthea Downes welcomed the group and accompanied them around the exhibitions.
 
Karen said “This wonderful museum really inspired on our visit to this beautiful and unique area. Delighted to learn so much about the history and important figures that make this area one to return to. Thank you!”
 
The Fairlynch Museum Chairman, Trevor Waddington, said: “It was a pleasure to welcome Karen and her visitors to the museum and to help fill in the details about the area where Roger Conant grew up. They seemed to be fascinated by our museum and our acclaimed collection of artefacts that represent millions of years of history in East Devon.“
 

Fairlynch's famous Coffee Time Talks are back next month and there is an exciting and varied list of topics to be covered between now and next spring. The talks take place on the first Wednesday of every month in the Peter Hall, behind St Peter's Church. Doors open at 10.30 for refreshments with the talks starting at 11am. Friends of Fairlynch pay £4 (please bring your membership card) and other members of the public pay £6.
See EVENTS for more details on each talk.
Here are the dates for your diary:

4th Sept. Delivering aid to the Ukraine.
Speaker:Andrew Canning OBE
2nd Oct. Robert Maxwell. Did he jump or was he pushed?
Speaker: David Kerr
6th Nov. Bungle in the Jungle, a Devon take on the world’s great gold swindle.
Speaker: Ken McKechnie
4th Dec. Unsung heroes;The WW2 delivery woman of the Air Transport Auxiliary.
Speaker: Candy Atkins 
8th Jan 25. The Lower Otter Nature Reserve. What we’ve learned so far.
Speakers: Rick Lockwood & Sam Bridgewater
5th Feb. Belinda Lee, Budleigh’s controversial film star.
Speaker: Phil Whickham
5th Mar. Meet Sir Walter Raleigh’s mother.
Speaker: Rosemary Griggs
2nd April. Devon’s part in the Battle of Britain.
Speaker: John Smith

Joyce Dennys is the subject of our next Coffee Time Talk, on Wednesday 6th March 2024 at 11am in the Peter Hall behind St Peter's Church, Budleigh Salterton. The illustrated talk will be given by her biographer and Friend of Fairlynch, Sarah Bussey, whose book Joyce Dennys and Budleigh Salterton - An Artist's Life and Work in her Place and Times can be purchased at the museum or through our online shop.

Joyce Dennys was born in British India in 1893 and came to Budleigh Salterton aged eleven, when her father Lt-Col Charles Dennys retired from the Indian Army and brought his family here to live. She lived here almost eighty years and was known to most local people as Doctor Evans' wife. Unknown to them she was also a hard-working artist, illustrator and comic writer whose work was seen everywhere, including frequent contributions to The Sketch  and Punch from the 1920s to the 1950s. 

Coffee and tea is served from 10.30, with the talk starting at 11am. Entry is £4.00 to Friends of Fairlynch and £6.00 to others. All welcome.

Guilty as charged? Former High Court judge Sir Richard Gibbs delivers the next Coffee Time Talk on Wednesday 7th February in St Peter’s Church Hall at 11am. He will provide an insight into the dilemmas faced by defence counsel in criminal cases.
 
Arrive at 10.30 to enjoy a coffee or tea and biscuit and chat with friends before the talk begins. Entry costs £4 for Friends of Fairlynch and £6 for others.
 
There are two more talks for the calendar: on Wednesday 6th March Sarah Bussy will tell us all about Joyce Dennys (1893-1991), Budleigh Salterton’s own artist, dramatist, diarist and GP’s wife, the subject of her biography published in 2021. Joyce Dennys was the daughter of Lt-Col Charles Dennys of the Indian Army but the family moved back to the UK when she was eleven and made a home in Budleigh Salterton. A career in illustration and comic writing followed, and marriage to Dr Tom Evans. For three decades her work appeared regularly in the Sketch and Punch and her later paintings can be seen at Fairlynch.
 
Our final Coffee Time Talk is on Wednesday 3rd April, when Fairlynch chairman Trevor Waddington re-introduces us to Admiral George William Preedy RN. (1817-1894).  Preedy joined the navy aged eleven, rose up the ranks to become a Rear-Admiral, and was responsible for laying the first transatlantic cable before retiring to Budleigh Salterton. In 2017 Fairlynch celebrated the bicentenary of Preedy, and his contribution to worldwide telecommunication!

Join us on the first Wednesday of every month, from September 2023 to April 2024, at St Peter’s Church Hall, Budleigh Salterton at 10.30 for coffee or tea followed by a fascinating hour-long lecture starting at 11am. The topics are wide-ranging and we begin on Wednesday 6th September with a talk by Ian Blackwell on Roger Conant.
 
Conant is famous in the US as founder of the city of Salem in Massachusetts. He was born in East Budleigh, trained as a salter and sailed to the New World in the wake of the Pilgrim Fathers four hundred years ago this year. A peaceable man, he disapproved of the increasingly intolerant regime of the Protestant Separatist immigrants at Plymouth and moved his family away, eventually leading a group of colonists to a small fishing settlement named Naumkeag – renamed Salem - in 1626.
 
Local historian Ian will tell Roger Conant’s story and explain why this unsung local hero deserves his place in history!
 
Later this year we can look forward to talks on Henry VIII’s warship Mary Rose, RAF Exeter in World War II, and the delights of B Movies. Next year's topics include Admiral Preedy, Joyce Dennys and Wildlife on the River Otter. See a full list with dates on this website under Events.

This season Fairlynch geologist Nicky Hewitt will be leading walks each month, May - September, to explain the pebblebed and other strata in Budleigh's famous red cliffs, laid down in the hot Triassic desert of 240 million years ago. Located almost at the beginning of the World Heritage Jurassic Coast, our cliffs are older and have a fascinating story to tell of tumultuous rivers and scorching winds, in the age before dinosaurs roamed the earth.

The walks will leave from Fairlynch at 2.00pm on the second Tuesday of the month. Heading west to begin with, those who are comfortable walking on the pebbles will descend onto the beach at Steamer Steps to walk the short distance to the start of the pebblebed stratum. Those less mobile are invited to wait at the top of the steps for their return and the remainder of the walk will be easterly along the seafront, to where the traces of ancient roots emerge from the rockface. 

The cost will be £2.50 per person, under 16s free. Afterwards, why not tour the museum and see some fossils close up?

The dates are 9th May, 13th June, 11th July, 8th August & 12th September. There is no need to book.

​Fairlynch has a great competition for Budleigh Salterton children to create a recycled crown for the forthcoming coronation of King Charles III. The competition is sponsored by Budleigh Salterton Lions Club. Winners will not only get vouchers to spend on crafting goodies, but will also see their crowns displayed in the museum until the end of October.
 
As the King is a committed environmentalist the crowns must be built only of materials and items found in East Devon recycling boxes and bags. No sharp items to be used please! They must be a strong enough structure to be worn and be all the child’s own work. The competition is open to children living in Budleigh Salterton only and there are three age categories:
 
Age groups:   5-8    9-12    13-16
 
Prizes: The Mayor of Budleigh Salterton will present the winners in each category with a £50 voucher and the runners-up with a £25 voucher, in a ceremony at Fairlynch on Friday 28th April at 16.30.
 
Unfortunately we do not have space at the museum to receive and store the crowns, so entries will be judged by emailed photo.
 
To Enter: Please take a close-up photograph of the finished crown either on display or on the head of the child who has made it and email it to:
 
[email protected]
 
with the name, address and age of the entrant, by the Closing Date of Monday 17th April.
 

Our view of civilian defences during the Second World War tends to come from Dad's Army - old men armed with pitchforks - but the reality was very different. The length of Britain, highly trained, highly secret groups of civilians were prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice in defence of our country should a German invasion succeed. This is the story of these remarkable would-be resistance fighters in East Devon.
Andrew Chatterton is a Second World War historian who focuses on the secret layers of civilian defence in Britain. His book: Britain's Secret Defences: Civilian Saboteurs, Spies and Assassins was published in July and he was a popular speaker at our recent Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival.
His talk, and all our Coffee Time Talks, will take place in the Peter Hall, Budleigh Salterton at 11am, with refreshments served from 10.30am. All are welcome. £3 for Friends of Fairlynch and £5 for visitors.
Please note: new regulations mean there is much reduced parking at the church.

Fairlynch’s new exhibition on the Lower Otter Restoration Project was opened by our patron Lord Clinton last week as the museum opened its doors for 2022.
 
The LORP exhibition features a video with stunning aerial photography. Various speakers outline aspects of the plan and its projected consequences, starting with the recognition that pre-emptive work was needed to return the river to its historic floodplain in a controlled way, before that option was swept away by rising sea-levels, storms and frequent flooding events. The 200-year-old embankments will now be breached deliberately and new bridges and viewing platforms introduced to carry the South West Coast Path and accommodate visitors interested in the wildlife. Alongside the video are display panels with further information and some beautiful artwork by John Washington, who has been recording the engineers at work in the valley since the project began.
 
The LORP exhibition is expected to run for two or three years and will be updated as the landscape changes from water meadow to salt marsh and mudflat.
 
This year we also have an exhibition marking the platinum jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, with artefacts and images from past royal jubilees celebrated in and around Budleigh; a collection of work by Cecil Isobel Elgee; frocks of the 1950s and lace from the Priscilla Hull collection.
 
Covid restrictions have lifted so the local and family history research collections are accessible again and upstairs in the Joy Gawne Room the rocking horse makes a welcome reappearance for visiting children.

All Friends of Fairlynch are welcome to the 2022 AGM at 11am on Wednesday 4th May in the Peter Hall, Budleigh Salterton. When the business of the meeting is concluded there will be coffee and tea at around 11.30am, followed by a talk by local naturalist and photographer David White at 12pm.
 
David’s talk, entitled “The Otter Estuary and its Changing Wildlife Habitat” will consider what birds and animals might be visiting or living in and around the floodplain in years to come, as the Lower Otter Restoration Project reaches maturity. Will we be seeing more glossy ibis and cattle egrets? Will the beavers have upped sticks and migrated upstream to fresher water? David will draw on his own and others’ expertise and observations at nearby wetland habitats to make some tentative predictions for the future.

Three more fascinating talks have been scheduled for the first Wednesdays in the months before Fairlynch opens for the new season this year. All the talks start at 11am, but why not come early and enjoy a coffee and chat with old friends first? The doors open at 10.30. The venue is as before: the Peter Hall, behind St Peter's Church. Entry costs £5, discounted to £3 for Friends of Fairlynch.

This year the speakers and topics are:
Wednesday 2nd February 2022: Brian Portch - Brunel's Great Western Railway
Wednesday 2nd March 2022: David Strange - The Norman Lockyer Observatory
Wednesday 6th April 2022: Stewart Raine - The Development of the English Seaside Resort

Fairlynch is delighted to announce that our popular Coffee Time Talks begin again on Wednesday 1st September, with a talk by David White on Wildlife Around the River Otter. David is well known locally for his extraordinary photography, capturing a huge range of wildlife, including the beavers seen in images on this website and in the museum. His photograph of local polecats was a BBC Countryfile Calendar winner.

Save the date - Coffee Time Talks take place on the first Wednesday of every month at 10.30 for 11am in the Peter Hall. Entry costs £3 to Friends of Fairlynch and £5 to the general public. Coffee and tea is included.

Future speakers and topics include:
Weds 6th October: Ken McKechnie - West Country Mining: the reality behind the myth
Weds 3rd November: Clare James - Clinton Devon Estates
Weds 1st December: Alan Humphries - Exmouth Docks: the demise of a working port

Local author and Friend of Fairlynch Sarah Bussy will be in conversation with Brook Gallery owner Angela Yarwood on Friday 17th September at noon in the Church on the Green, as part of Budleigh Salterton's Literary Festival Fringe. They will be talking about Sarah's new book, Joyce Dennys and Budleigh Salterton and to coincide with the book's publication Fairlynch will be exhibiting Dennys' charming paintings that often featured the town and its people. 
The event and sale of the book will raise funds for Fairlynch, so do come along and find out more about one of our most celebrated former residents!
Tickets are £12 from www.budlitfest.org.uk 

On Your Marks, Get Set, No Need to Bake!

 - Not if you buy your Christmas cards from us and are the lucky winner of the Fairlynch Christmas Raffle this year!

The prize is a scrumptious traditional iced Christmas cake in the shape of the museum and one raffle ticket will be included in each pack of five Christmas cards we sell, for the bargain price of £4 per pack. You can order packs online or buy them in person at Fairlynch, 10.00 - 12.00 on Thursday 3rd to Saturday 5th December, when our volunteers will be on hand to accept contactless payment, observing Covid-19 safety precautions.

There are just 100 tickets and the draw will be made on 21st December. The notified winner must be able to collect the cake from Fairlynch.

The prize has been made by professional cake maker Kristina Evans and is a traditional fruitcake with brandy soaked fruit and nuts covered with homemade marzipan and fondant icing. It is approximately 10 in/25 cms across.

The cards are A5 sized with wording inside: With best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.

To order online, please follow the link below to Devon Museums' shop.

Good luck!

Budleigh Salterton Co-op has shown its support for Fairlynch by choosing us as a local community cause, so we can receive funding through its membership scheme.

If you are a member of the Co-op and select the shop's own-brand products, you will accrue cash savings and the same amount will be donated to the local cause you choose - but you do need to register which cause you support and always remember to use your membership card.

Register online for Co-op membership at coop.co.uk/membership and select Fairlynch from the list of local good causes, or if you’re already a member but haven’t selected a cause, please log in to your membership account and plump for us now!

The easiest way is to click on the button below and pick us!

Our thanks to the people at the Co-op’s Local Community Fund.