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!
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If you have a contribution for the archive, please contact Roz Hickman or Diane Waddington at history@fairlynchmuseum.uk 

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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!

A long-awaited booklet about the history of Fairlynch is now available with the publication of The Making of a Museum, edited by Fairlynch Trustee Michael Downes.  Based on a 1987 study of the museum building itself, the new title has been brought out to mark Fairlynch’s 50th anniversary and chronicles the development of a much-loved Budleigh institution from its beginnings up to the present day.

At over 50 pages and lavishly illustrated with almost 100 images, The Making of a Museum is a tribute to the original founders of Fairlynch as well as a story of determination and vision. It was a story crowned by many achievements.  One of the most notable was persuading the Tate Gallery to allow on two occasions the showing in Budleigh of Millais’ original painting ‘The Boyhood of Raleigh’.

The booklet is available from the Museum shop, price £5.00. All profits go to Fairlynch. ​