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.

Budleigh Salterton’s mystery yarn-bomber Knitsy has donated their Covid-themed creation to Fairlynch for our pandemic archive and eventual exhibition.

The rainbow-coloured crochet with its cheerful poem appeared on the pole at the end of the Raleigh Wall at the beginning of May, when we were in the midst of lockdown. Like the pebble-artist Simon Wood’s amazing beach art and local people’s displays of painted pebbles along the seafront, it was designed to raise a smile when many of us were feeling anxious and downcast.

Fairlynch is collecting local stories, photographs and memorabilia from the Covid-19 pandemic, so please let us know if you have something to share with us. We are living through a historic time and one day we’ll want to look back on it – hopefully from a position of good health and economic security!
​
If you have a contribution for the archive, please contact Roz Hickman or Diane Waddington at history@fairlynchmuseum.uk 

River Otter beavers can stay!
 
A government review of the five-year reintroduction trial has concluded that beavers do more good than harm in our environment, so the River Otter beavers, thought to number around 50 individuals, can stay as a permanent keystone species in our local ecology.
 
Beavers were hunted to extinction in England 400 years ago, and this landmark decision by Defra marks the first legally sanctioned reintroduction of an extinct native mammal in England.
 
“Our rivers and wetlands really need beavers and this is brilliant news,” said Mark Elliot, who coordinated the trial for Devon Wildlife Trust.
 
Defra based its decision on the report by trial partners DWT, Clinton Devon Estates, University of Exeter and Derek Gow Associates. It found that reintroducing beavers had significant benefits for fish and other wildlife populations and diversity, water quality and flood management.
 
The Wildlife Trusts now hope this success will lead to a national strategy, perhaps involving subsidies to landowners who allow landscape engineering by beavers to create new wetlands. There should also be assistance for farmers whose agricultural income is adversely affected.
 
Environment minister Rebecca Pow told the BBC that under a new subsidy system after the UK leaves the EU, “those with land will be paid for delivering services, such as flood management and increased biodiversity….Using beavers in a wider catchment sense, farmers could be paid to have them on their land.”

Fairlynch has been closely following the River Otter Beaver Trial with an evolving exhibition in the Priscilla Hull Room. 

In light of the latest government advice, and in order to protect volunteers and visitors alike, the Trustees have taken the decision to cancel all public activities associated with the Fairlynch Museum until further notice.

Please note that the following events have been cancelled or postponed:

• Wednesday 1st April - Coffee Time Talk (cancelled)
• Thursday 9th April - Preview Event for Friends of Fairlynch (postponed indefinitely)
• Wednesday 6th May – Annual General Meeting and Talk (postponed indefinitely)

In addition, the Museum will not open as planned on 10th April, but will remain closed until such times as the advice from the Government changes, and Trustees feel that it is safe to open the Museum to visitors.

Keeping the Museum closed will not reduce our running costs – last year it cost about £37 a day just to keep it going. With this delay in opening for the 2020 Season, we will be facing a reduction in our anticipated income from entry fees and visitor donations, so any additional donations would be most gratefully received. You can do this by cheque made payable to ‘Budleigh Salterton Arts Centre & Museum’ or through the Big Give button below.

Trustees will be reviewing the situation on a regular basis and we will keep the website updated about any changes.

In the meantime, we hope that you stay safe and well, and look forward to welcoming you to the Museum as soon as feasible.

Trevor Waddington OBE
Chair
On behalf of the Trustees

The Museum's Annual General Meeting which was due to take place in Peter Hall on Wednesday, 6 May 2020 followed by a talk by Tony Venning on 'Samuel Pepys, Diarist - His Life and Loves' has sadly had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 virus outbreak.

Thirty Museum volunteers enjoyed an evening together on Saturday 14 December 2019 at what has become a regular pre-Christmas fixture in the Fairlynch calendar. The fish and chips supper was provided by Budleigh Fish Café and proved a popular choice, followed by mince pies and cream and a raffle! Cheers! Here’s to many more Fairlynch parties!

The 2020 end of season party for volunteers will be on Saturday 7 November 2020. How about joining us if you’re not already a volunteer? 

This was recently confirmed by lace historian Brian Lemin of New South Wales, Australia. The 11½ cm long wooden bobbin is carved with the initials MR and the date 1662.

Fairlynch's curator of lace Sue Morgan says “It came into the museum's collection in the 1990s and its origin is unknown.
However, style and decoration are typical of an East Devon trolly-lace bobbin made for a lace-maker with the initials MR in 1662.”

Museum chairman Trevor Waddington commented “It was made just two years after the Restoration of King Charles II and four years before the Great Fire of London. If only these objects could talk!”

Recently Christine Hadley, who curates the Fairlynch toy collection, re-discovered the Fairlynch Pig and has made this short video of him (or her).

He was made in about 1930 by the French automaton company Roullet et Descamps in Paris. He is about 30cm long covered in pink chamois leather with glass eyes.  He walks, nods his head and grunts!