Budleigh Salterton is a seaside town on the coast in

East Devon East Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. Its council has been based in Honiton since February 2019, and the largest town is Exmouth (with a population of 34,432 at the time of the 2011 census). The district was formed ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, south-east of Exeter. It lies within the East Devon

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of ...

, and forms much of the electoral ward of Budleigh, whose ward population at the 2011 census was 5,967.

Features

Budleigh Salterton lies at the mouth of the River Otter, where the estuary includes a bed of reeds and a grazing marsh, which form a haven for migratory birds and a Site of Special Scientific Interest for bird watchers. It has a designated area for

naturist Naturism is a lifestyle of practising non-sexual social nudity in private and in public; the word also refers to the cultural movement which advocates and defends that lifestyle. Both may alternatively be called nudism. Though the two terms a ...

s. The village is crossed by the South West Coast Path, with clifftop routes eastwards to

Sidmouth Sidmouth () is a town on the English Channel in Devon, South West England, southeast of Exeter. With a population of 12,569 in 2011, it is a tourist resort and a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. A large part of the town h ...

and westwards to Exmouth. The pebble beach and cliffs are part of the

Jurassic Coast The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about , and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-Decembe ...

World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

Facilities

Fairlynch Museum is housed in a listed, thatched marine

cottage orné Cottage orné () dates back to a movement of "rustic" stylised cottages of the late 18th and early 19th centuries during the Romantic movement, when some sought to discover a more natural way of living as opposed to the formality of the preceding ...

dating from 1811. It covers the history and geology of the region, and opened in 1967, offering exhibitions and a local archive. It possesses a large collection of period costumes. The town has a male-voice choir, which performs for charity.

Transport

Budleigh Salterton lies on the B3178 secondary road; the B3179 ends on the western edge of the town. There are regular bus links with Exmouth and

, one also providing a local town service. Between 1897 and 1967, Budleigh Salterton was served by a station on the

Budleigh Salterton Railway The Budleigh Salterton Railway was a single track branch railway line that ran from a junction on the Sidmouth Railway at to via four intermediate stations: , , , and . There were passing loops at Littleham and Budleigh Salterton. History Fr ...

, built and operated by the

London & South Western Railway The London and South Western Railway (LSWR, sometimes written L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1838 to 1922. Originating as the London and Southampton Railway, its network extended to Dorchester and Weymouth, to Salisbury, Exeter ...

, which ran from Tipton St Johns to Exmouth, which is now the nearest railway station at 8 km (5 miles).

Sports

Budleigh Salterton is home to the scenic East Devon

Golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

Club. Its 11-lawn

croquet Croquet ( or ; french: croquet) is a sport that involves hitting wooden or plastic balls with a mallet through hoops (often called "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Its international governing body is the W ...

club (offering croquet, bowls and bridge), founded in the late 1860s, is one of the oldest and largest in the country. The first team of the Budleigh Salterton

Association Football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

Club plays in the South West Peninsula League Division One East and there is a second team, a ladies' team and a youth team. In addition, there is a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...

club, a rifle club, and a games club offering

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

, bowls and other pursuits.

Churches

The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

in Budleigh Salterton originally took the form a chapel of ease under the parish of All Saints,

East Budleigh East Budleigh is a small village in East Devon, England. The villages of Yettington, Colaton Raleigh, and Otterton lie to the west, north and east of East Budleigh, with the seaside town of Budleigh Salterton about two miles south. Until th ...

. As the population grew, this was replaced in the 1890s by what became the Parish Church of St Peter in 1901. The church was heavily damaged by enemy aircraft bombing on 17 April 1942, but reopened in 1953. Today the Raleigh Mission Community at St Peter's, Budleigh Salterton, and All Saints, East Budleigh, are part of a joint mission with St Michael's,

Otterton Otterton is a village and civil parish in East Devon, England. The parish lies on the English Channel and is surrounded clockwise from the south by the parishes of East Budleigh, Bicton, Colaton Raleigh, Newton Poppleford and Harpford and Sidmou ...

. The Roman Catholic Church is also dedicated to St Peter. The Temple

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

Church was completed in 1904 to replace a smaller chapel dating from 1812, which had been built by the bookseller

James Lackington James Lackington (31 August 1746, in Wellington, Somerset – 22 November 1815, in Budleigh Salterton, Devon Timperley, Charles, ''A Dictionary of Printers and Printing: with the progress of literature'', 1839:862, ''s.v.'' "1815, Nov. 22".) ...

, an associate of John Wesley. There is a

Baptist Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only ( believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compe ...

church in the town, whose congregation dates back to 1843.

Notable residents

In birth order: *The German-born English painter

Hubert von Herkomer Sir Hubert von Herkomer (born as Hubert Herkomer; 26 May 1849 – 31 March 1914) was a Bavarian-born British painter, pioneering film-director, and composer. Though a very successful portrait artist, especially of men, he is mainly remembered fo ...

died here in 1914. *

Belinda Lee Belinda Lee (15 June 193512 March 1961) was an English actress. A profile for the British Film Institute's Screenonline website asserts: "of all the Rank Organisation's starlets, Belinda Lee stands out as the most notorious, yet paradoxicall ...

, actress in British films of the 1950s, was born here in 1935. Her father managed a hotel in the town. * Charles Warrell, creator of the '' I-Spy'' series of children's books, lived here from his retirement in 1956 until his death in 1995. *Writer Dame

Hilary Mantel Dame Hilary Mary Mantel ( ; born Thompson; 6 July 1952 – 22 September 2022) was a British writer whose work includes historical fiction, personal memoirs and short stories. Her first published novel, '' Every Day Is Mother's Day'', was relea ...

(1952-2022), author of ''

Wolf Hall ''Wolf Hall'' is a 2009 historical novel by English author Hilary Mantel, published by Fourth Estate, named after the Seymour family's seat of Wolfhall, or Wulfhall, in Wiltshire. Set in the period from 1500 to 1535, ''Wolf Hall'' is a symp ...

'' and ''

Bring Up the Bodies ''Bring Up the Bodies'' is an historical novel by Hilary Mantel; sequel to the award-winning ''Wolf Hall;'' and part of a trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, the powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It won the ...

,'' lived here.

In popular culture

In 2003, Budleigh Salterton featured in episode 3 of series 3 of ''Top Gear'' as the destination for a road test by

Jeremy Clarkson Jeremy Charles Robert Clarkson (born 11 April 1960) is an English broadcaster, journalist, game show host and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for the motoring programmes '' Top Gear'' and '' The Grand Tour'' alongside R ...

of a

Bentley Continental GT The Bentley Continental GT is a grand tourer manufactured and marketed by British automaker Bentley Motors since 2003. It was the first car released by Bentley under Volkswagen AG management, after the company's acquisition in 1998, and the fi ...

. An episode of the BBC series ''

Blackadder the Third ''Blackadder the Third'' is the third series of the BBC sitcom ''Blackadder'', written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 17 September to 22 October 1987. The series is set during the Georgian Era, and sees the principal character ...

'' refers to the town. In addition, the town is mentioned in season 6 episode 1 of the Granada Television's ''

Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV series) ''Sherlock Holmes'' is the overall title given to the series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations produced by the British television company Granada Television between 1984 and 1994. The first two series were shown under the title ''The Adventures of S ...

''. It is also mentioned in Noël Coward's 1941 comedy '' Blithe Spirit''. The town features regularly in the BBC radio satirical series '' Giles Wemmbley-Hogg Goes Off''.

References

External links

*
Budleigh Salterton Town Council website
{{Authority control Towns in Devon Beaches of Devon Geology of Devon Jurassic Coast Nude beaches Seaside resorts in England Civil parishes in Devon East Devon District