A wholly absorbing daydream

A wholly absorbing daydream

By: Michael Downes
Added: 14 November 2011

The Walk with Words event held on 18 September 2011 as part of Budleigh Salterton Literary Festival was the first-ever tour of the town's literary heritage. It followed a route showing the homes of past and present authors, along with artists, scientists and musicians.

Umbrella Cottage on Fore Street Hill, one of the buildings on the tour, belonged to Budleigh's only home-grown Fellow of the Royal Society. Army surgeon and geologist Henry John Carter (1813-95), was noted for his work as a spongiologist, for which he was awarded the Royal Society's Royal Medal in 1872.

Fairlynch Museum press officer Michael Downes who helped to organise the Walk was struck by the fact that in just over a year's time marine biologists will be celebrating the bicentenary of Dr Carter's birth in 2013.

The absorbing thought of how such a celebration might be held in Dr Carter's home town set his imagination racing. Click on http://budleighbrewsterunited.blogspot.com/2011/11/absorbing-read.html to see how.    


Fairlynch Museum

Fairlynch occupies an imposing position on a bank overlooking the junction of Fore Street and Marine Parade. It is one of the very few thatched museums in the UK. The building......

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