Budleigh Salterton is a seaside town on the coast in

East Devon East Devon is a local government district in Devon, England. Its council is based in the town of Honiton, although Exmouth is the largest town. The district also contains the towns of Axminster, Budleigh Salterton, Cranbrook, Ottery St M ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, south-east of

Exeter Exeter ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and the county town of Devon in South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter w ...

. It lies within the East Devon

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...

, and forms much of the

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

of Budleigh, whose ward population at the 2021 census was 7,671.

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 A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

for bird watchers. It has a designated area for

naturist Naturism is a lifestyle of practicing 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 The South West Coast Path is England's longest waymarked Long-distance footpaths in the UK, long-distance footpath and a National Trail. It stretches for , running from Minehead in Somerset, along the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, to Poole Harb ...

, 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 13,258 in 2021, it is a tourist resort and a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. A large part of the town has ...

and westwards to

Exmouth Exmouth is a harbor, port town, civil parishes in England, civil parish and seaside resort situated on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exe, southeast of Exeter. In 2011 it had a population of 34,432, making Exmouth the List of settl ...

. The pebble beach and cliffs are part of the

Jurassic Coast The Jurassic Coast, also known as the Dorset and East Devon 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 ins ...

World Heritage Site World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

Facilities

Fairlynch Museum is housed in a listed, thatched marine

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 Baroque and Neo ...

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. It has a flourishing Classical Music festival in the summer and a popular Literary festival in the autumn.

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

and

, with less frequent services to Exeter. Between 1897 and 1967, Budleigh Salterton was served by a station on the Budleigh Salterton Railway, 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, Dorset, Dorchester and Weymouth, Do ...

, which ran from Tipton St Johns to

, which is now the nearest railway station at 8 km (5 miles). Large sections of the disused Exmouth to Budleigh branch line now serves as a cycle path.

Sports

Budleigh Salterton is home to the scenic East Devon

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

Club. Its 11-lawn

croquet Croquet ( or ) is a sport which involves hitting wooden, plastic, or composite balls with a mallet through hoops (often called Wicket, "wickets" in the United States) embedded in a grass playing court. Variations In all forms of croquet, in ...

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 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

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 games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

club, a rifle club, and a games club offering

tennis Tennis is a List of racket sports, racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles (tennis), singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles (tennis), doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket st ...

bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which players try to roll their ball (called a bowl) closest to a smaller ball (known as a "jack" or sometimes a "kitty"). The bowls are shaped (biased), so that they follow a curve ...

and other pursuits.

Churches

The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

in Budleigh Salterton originally took the form a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently, generally due to trav ...

under the parish of All Saints, East Budleigh. As the population grew, this was replaced in the 1890s by what became the Parish Church of St Peter in 1901. St Peter's Church was built between 1891 and 1893 to a design by George Fellowes-Prynne. It was heavily damaged by enemy aircraft bombing on 17 April 1942, losing a great many of the stained glass windows by Percy Bacon & Brothers, 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 Sidmo ...

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

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

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

John Wesley John Wesley ( ; 2 March 1791) was an English cleric, Christian theology, theologian, and Evangelism, evangelist who was a principal leader of a Christian revival, revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies ...

. There is a

Baptist Baptists are a Christian denomination, denomination within Protestant Christianity distinguished by baptizing only professing Christian believers (believer's baptism) and doing so by complete Immersion baptism, immersion. Baptist churches ge ...

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

Notable residents

In birth order: * James Lackington 1746–1815, founder of Temple Methodist Church. *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, 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 releas ...

(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 sym ...

'' and ''

Bring Up the Bodies ''Bring Up the Bodies'' is an historical novel by Hilary Mantel, sequel to the award-winning ''Wolf Hall'' (2009), 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 ...

,'' lived here.

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