BUDLEIGH ALMSHOUSES MAKE STEADY PROGRESS (WINTER 2025)

 

Following the news of a donation to Budleigh Alms houses in the Autumn 2025 issue of The Conant Courier, members of the Roger Conant Club are following progress of this exciting project with keen interest. 



Left: The roof was on by the end of October.



Almshouses have been around for a long time. The oldest English alms house still in use dates from about 990 A.D. An abiding feature of an almshouse charity throughout the ages is that they are governed by locally recruited, volunteer trustees whose motives are purely altruistic. 

Administered by the Shandford Trust, the Budleigh almshouses will allow older people of limited means to continue living in their local area, thereby maintaining balanced, stable communities. They will pay an affordable contribution towards the upkeep of their almshouse, set below local market rates. This support is essential to places like Britain’s West Country, where house prices and rent have become unaffordable for so many. 


The site will have accommodation for three couples or singles. Day to day 
support will be provided by the staff at neighbouring Seachange, a charity based in the former Budleigh hospital which provides a variety of services for the community. 

 How the almhouses will look. Illustration by Nick Speare.  


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

HOW DID THE CONANT COURIER START? BEVERLY MA JOURNALIST PAUL LEIGHTON EXPLAINS. (WINTER 2025)

Image
The front page of the first issue of The Conant Courier (Autumn 2025) When I heard there was a new newsletter having something to do with Beverly, I got a little nervous. Could this be competition for The Beverly Beat?  Then I found out the newsletter was from across the pond — and I’m not talking Kelleher’s. The new publication is called The Conant Courier, and it’s based in Devon, England, the birthplace of Roger Conant.  Roger Conant is the answer to the first question any self-respecting Beverly trivia contestant should be able to answer — Who was the founder of Beverly? READ MORE AT  https://thebeverlybeat.substack.com/p/roger-that
Read more

THREE CHEERS FOR UNTIDINESS! (AUTUMN 2025)

Image
 ‘Wow!’ exclaimed our 12-year-old grand-daughter Lucy as she saw the shambles of more than 80 years of clutter hidden in our garage. She settled down to explore. We both agreed that every family home should have something similar—a museum of untidily stacked curios and unfamiliar objects to surprise and delight visitors, especially children. Lucy’s reaction reminded me of how, as a child, the sister of a well known composer described her feelings as she explored the ‘rambling and dilapidated’ property at 31 Station Road in Budleigh Salterton. Budleigh artist Joyce Dennys had suggested that the family move to the town at the outbreak of World War Two, and then seek a permanent home away from the London bombs. ‘The house was thrilling!’ the sister recalled in Anthony Meredith’s biography of her famous brother, Sir Richard Rodney Bennett.  ‘I used to sneak about, taking everything in, and I went up to the attic once and it was full of assegais, masks and marvellous red-leather vo...
Read more

FROM SALEM COMMON TO CONFLICT: THE FIRST MUSTER AND THE PEQUOT WAR PANEL AND DINNER (WINTER 2025)

Image
Roger Conant and his fellow settlers at Naumkeag in the 1620s have been recorded as enjoying a harmonious relation ship with the indigenous people of the area. Sadly, the state of harmony did not last.   In 1636, a decade after the founding of what we know as the cities of Salem and Beverly came the two-year Pequot War.  Image courtesy of www.salemstate.edu   Veterans Hall at the Ellison Campus Center at Salem State University was the setting last November for what was described as ‘an evening of reflection, history, and community’ inspired by the complex issues arising from such tragedies of America’s past. The two-hour program followed a dinner based on a menu inspired by ‘Indigenous foodways’, described as the holistic and interrelated cultural food systems of Indigenous peoples, encompassing traditions, beliefs, and practices connected to their local environments.   Salem was designated the birthplace of the National Guard in 2010 by Ma...
Read more