AROUND THE TOWN AND OVER THE POND
A walk around Budleigh Salterton to interest transatlantic visitors. Every so often there’s a diversion which may inspire you to visit places like East Budleigh, Exeter, Sidmouth, Colyton or even places in the United States and Canada.
The walk is set out in parts. Here’s the third part:
At the Raleigh Wall.
0.3‘OF BIKES, POTATOES, PIPES, PAINTINGS AND OTHER MYTHS'
Image credit: Wikipedia
Think of Raleigh and many British people today would think notof Sir John Everett Millais and his dream of Sir Walter’s boyhood but of bikes.
The Raleigh bike company was actually named after RaleighStreet in Nottingham. It was founded in 1885 by a Briton, Richard MorrisWoodhead, and – of all things – a Frenchman called Paul Eugene Louis Angois.
And before you ask, yes, Raleigh Street in Nottingham wasnamed after Sir Walter in common with quite a few other British towns whichhave named streets or roads after him including Bedford, Coventry, Haringey inLondon as well as the London N1 district, Poole, Richmond in Surrey. And ofcourse in Devon - Dartmouth, Exeter, Exmouth, Ottery St Mary, Plymouth, andBudleigh Salterton - where Raleigh Road runs off East Budleigh Road, as shown above.
_(16460959319).jpg "AROUND THE TOWN AND OVER THE POND - 03: ‘OF BIKES, POTATOES, PIPES, PAINTINGS AND OTHER MYTHS’ (3)")
Image credit: Wikipedia
Some people believe that Sir Walter invented potatoes. It’strue that an American-bred potato is named after him - described in this advertisem*nt as 'the best Potato we have ever tried' by a 'Rural New-Yorker'.
I tried to get a Devon chipmanufacturer to launch a brand called ‘Wallies’ in time to mark the 400th anniversary of Sir Walter's death, but without success.
Image credit: Wikipedia
Thiscontemporary painting of the Great Famine in Ireland caused by potato blightwas entitled 'An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of their Store'and exhibited in London in 1847.The painter was Daniel Macdonald (1820-1853), ayoung Irish artist recently arrived in Britain. It is notable that the paintingbarely merited comment at the time.
At a talk I gave in East Budleigh a man in the audience toldme that Raleigh was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Irish people inthe 19th century. I was so surprised and dumbstruck for a fewmoments that I forgot to stand up for Sir Walter and potatoes by suggestingthat the humble vegetable might have kept many more Irish people alive over thecenturies.
The monument commemorating the Smerwick Harbour massacre. Image credit: www.geograph.org.uk
Strangely, the man in that East Budleigh audience failed tomention how Raleigh was blamed – perhaps unjustly – for the massacre of Irishrebels along with Italians and Spanish soldiers at Smerwick. According to the poet SeamasHeaney, the ground was ‘sowed with the mouthing corpses of six hundred papists’.
Image credit: Imperial War Museum
Some people might also believe that Sir Walter wasresponsible for lung cancer because of his discovery of tobacco. These cigarettes were produced during WW2 by Brown & WilliamsonTobacco Corp. from Louisville, Kentucky. The back of the package shows anadvertisem*nt to buy War Bonds and Stamps for Victory.
‘The Pipe Smoker’©Ronnie Heeps
Image credit: www.artuk.org
Speaking of which, I love this painting by the Scottishartist Ronnie Heeps. From Raleigh’s smoky breath comes a line of ships exploringthe stars. And at the bottom right you see a space rocket taking off. From CapeCanaveral perhaps?
Powderham Castle, home of the Earl of Devon
Charles Courtenay, 19thEarl of Devon, owner of Powderham Castle, whose family was distantly related toRaleigh’s, told me: ‘Sir Walter Raleigh is a hero to every Devonian with awanderlust and a sense of adventure – we should all make a pilgrimage to theRaleigh Wall in Budleigh Salterton. A copy of the Boyhood of Raleigh hangs onmy son’s bedroom wall. A reminder of times when local Devon sailors pushed thebounds of the known world and when our rugged coastline was the Cape Canaveralof its day.’
I wondered whether he had seenthat painting by Ronnie Heeps.
Professor Brent Lane at the tomb of Sir Walter Raleigh in St Margaret's Church, Westminster
A scholar of Raleigh and of entrepreneurialfinance, an American economics professor based at the University of NorthCarolina,has researched parallelsbetween Sir Walter's 16th century sea voyages and 21st century spaceexploration. Professor Brent Lane isinterested in the lessons that Elizabethan entrepreneurial explorations offerto modern commercial space entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and RichardBranson.
I don’t know whether Raleigh is one of SirRichard Branson’s heroes, but Virgin Trains certainly has a locomotive, no.221113, named after the Great Elizabethan.
This painting of Raleigh with a Molyneux globe by an unknown artist was displayed at the Velvet Cloak Inn at Raleigh, North Carolina. Seen right is the Molyneuxglobe at Petworth House, Sussex.Image credit: David O'Doherty
To finance the incredibly expensive expeditionswhich he organised, the talents of the modern entrepreneur were what he needed.
ForRaleigh, the backing of financiers like William Sanderson (c1548-1638) wasvital to ensure that investors in the City of London would support his plansfor colonies in the New World.
It was Sanderson, a member of the City of LondonFishmongers’ Livery Company and married to Raleigh’s niece Margaret Snedale,who had sponsored and managedthe voyages undertaken by the navigator John Davis in search of the North WestPassage in Northern Canada. He also provided funds for the mathematician andinstrument maker Emery Molyneux to construct the first globes made in England.
'The School of the Night'©Ronnie Heeps
Image credit: www.artuk.org
‘The Smoker’ is one of a series that artist RonnieHeeps called ‘Dreaming beyond the Medieval’. Here’s another, entitled ‘TheSchool of the Night’, the title being a modernname for a group of men centred on Sir Walter Raleigh that was once referred toin 1592 as 'The School of Atheism. The group supposedly included poets andscientists Christopher Marlowe, George Chapman, Matthew Roydon and ThomasHarriot.
'Wee Raleigh Star Commander'© Ronnie Heeps
Yet another painting by Ronnie Heeps with thetitle ‘Wee Raleigh Star Commander’, taking up the space exploration theme.
Inspired byRaleigh’s life story, the artist explained in 2006 that he wanted ‘to try and show the inner workings ofa true maverick spirit completely embroiled in the zeitgeist of his day’.
Sir Walter Raleigh, he wrote, ‘excelled innumerous fields and was able to cross between the disciplines of art, scienceand philosophy with ease. Such a proficiency in study exemplifies theRenaissance man. The ability to comprehend and bring together many disparateideas enabled him to formulate a worldview, which had eluded many greatmedieval intellectuals.'
‘Raleigh was not afraid to undertake daringdeeds and dream of glorious multifaceted worlds, which lay just beyond thehorizon of conventional thought,’ Ronnie Heeps continued. ‘He could comprehend a future world that wasnot a preordained construct. A future world, which was in a constant state offlux and therefore open to the influence of secular thinkers.’
Whether Millais stayed in Budleigh Salterton or not, thatRaleigh Wall has been immortalised in Raleigh’s painting.
It’s so special that as part of the 2018 Raleigh 400 celebrations in the town, a re-enactment of the event was staged. 'Sir Walter Raleigh' commented on the scene as local artist John Washington played the part of Millais.
A volunteer was found to play 'The Sailor', bravely keeping his arm outstretched for hours on end.
Local children,including girls, played the parts of Walter and Humphrey and the scene was completed by various props, including the toy ship, an anchor, and even a plastic toucan.
A memorable moment was the arrival of a second 'Sir Walter Raleigh' on horseback from the local riding school.
Included in this group shot on Budleigh beach is Rosemary Griggs in the red costume. A specialist in the history of Raleigh's family, Rosemary has since published two novels set in Tudor times.
The first, 'A Woman of Noble Wit', published in 2021, was based on the life of Katherine Raleigh, mother of Sir Walter.
'Elizabeth I CommissionsRaleigh to Sail for America, 1584' byAlfred Kingsley Lawrence(1893–1975), from theParliamentaryArt Collection. Image credit: www.artuk.org
Sowhat’s the connection with America, and especially with the US? For some peopleit’s so close that they imagine him setting out across the Atlantic to claimland for his Queen. That seems to be hinted at in this painting by the Englishartist Alfred KingsleyLawrence (1893–1975), pictured above.
'Sir WalterRaleigh ordering the Standard of Queen Elizabeth to be erected on the Coast ofVirginia.' Engraved for Middleton's Complete System of Geography. Image credit: www.rmg.co.uk
The 18th century publisher of this engraving certainly believed it.
Raleigh actually never set foot in North America. But heorganised attempts to colonise it, sending people like the geographer andartist John White to survey it and report back with glowing descriptions ofwhat a fantastic place it would be for City of London merchants to invest in. His remarkable watercolours are part of the British Museum's collection.
