Bude
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- See also Bude, Mississippi
Template:GBdot Bude (Cornish: Bud) is a small resort town and watering-place in Cornwall on the north coast at the mouth of the river Neet. Notable buildings include the Early English parish church in the village of Poughill just outside of Bude, the parish church of St Michael and All Angels, Ebbingford Manor, and the town's oldest house, Quay cottage in the centre of town. Bude Canal, which once ran to Launceston, now runs only a few miles inland.
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Dramatic Landscape
The coastal scenery in the neighbourhood of Bude is particularly fine, especially towards the south. The geology of the area is worthy of some study. The cliffs, with their folded banded strata, have been broken into fantastic forms by the waves. Many ships have been wrecked on the jagged reefs which fringe their base. The figure-head of one of these, the “Bencoolen” lost in 1862, is preserved in the churchyard.
The awesome sandstone cliffs that surround Bude (and stretch down as far as Crackington Haven) were formed during the carboniferous era, around 300 million years ago. The stratification of shale and sandstone, vividly contorted, are unique in southern Britain (although the Gower peninsula and Glamorgan heritage coast, across the Bristol Channel in Wales, have a similar stratification, except that they are formed of limestone, not sandstone). During what is known as the variscan orogany (which affected all the Cornish coast), the cliffs were literally pushed up from underneath the sea, creating the overlapping strata. As the sands and cliffs around Bude contain calcium carbonate (a natural fertiliser), farmers would come down to the beach and load up sand for spreading on their fields. The cliffs around Bude are the only ones in Cornwall that are made of sandstone (most of the Cornish coast is made from slate, granite and metamorphic rocks); because of this, the stratified cliffs of Bude give their name to a geological event called the Bude formation.
Local government
Bude is in the North Cornwall parliamentary constituency. It developed from the much older market town of Stratton, 1 1/8 miles inland to the east. In common with many rural towns, there is a three-tier structure of local government: Cornwall County Council (administers, for example, schools and highways); North Cornwall District Council (canal and harbour, refuse and recycling collection, street cleanliness); and Bude-Stratton Town Council. There was some local argument when the town council adopted the name Bude-Stratton, as it was previously Stratton-Bude! Bude's population in 1901 was 2308; by 2001 it had risen to 4674 [1].
Southern Railway
Bude was served by a branch of the London & South-Western railway until the line was axed in the "Beeching axe" of the early 1960s.
Victorian Resort
"Stratton was a market town when Bude was just a furzy down" is a local saying, meaning Stratton was long established when Bude was just gorse-covered downland. Bude developed in Victorian times as a result of improved transport links (see railway above) and the boom in tourism. Several of Bude's more impressive houses were established as holiday homes for the wealthy of the day, notably Hartland House, now Hartland Hotel, which was built by the Fry family of "Fry's chocolate" fame.
Bude Harbour and Canal
There is a small tidal "Haven" protected by a breakwater, that most people refer to as "Bude Harbour". Around twenty small boats use these tidal moorings during the summer months. Most are sport fishermen but there is also some small scale, semi-commercial, fishing for crab and lobster.
The harbour proper, however, is wharf on the canal and is accessed by the sea lock that links the canal to the haven. This can be opened only at or near high tide, and then only when sea conditions allow. North Cornwall District Council (www.ncdc.gov.uk) administer the canal, harbour and lock gates. These gates were recently renewed, as the originals were damaged in a storm. They are the only manually operated sea lock gates in England, and of great significance. The pier head by the locks is a grade II listed structure.
The canal is one of the few of note in south-west England. Its original purpose was to take small boats (tub boats) of mineral-rich sand from the beaches at Bude and carry it inland to use on the fields. The enterprise soon began to fail and was never a commercial operation. Much of the canal fell quickly into disuse, but the wharf area and harbour enjoyed a longer success. Coastal sailing ships carried grain across to Wales and coal back to Cornwall. This trade continued until the arrival of the railways made it uneconomic.
In 2005 a major project to re-develop the canal was approved. Work will include improving the banks and opening up a long closed section of canal.
Industry
Tourism is the main industry in the Bude area. Some fishing is carried on. In the past, the staple trade was the export of sand, which, being highly charged with carbonate of lime, was much used for manure. There are golf links near the town.
Bude has an Industrial Estate which houses Bott Ltd who manufacture huge ammounts of racking and tool holding accessories/ storage for vans and workshops, Tripos Receptor Research which produces prototypes of drugs for the pharmeceutical industry.
Beaches
There are a number of good beaches in the Bude area, many of which offer good surfing conditions. Bude was the founder club in British Surf Life Saving.
- Summerleaze and Crooklets beaches are both within the town;
- Widemouth bay is a few miles south of the town and offers a long, wide sandy beach;
- Sandymouth Beach is owned by the National Trust, and has spectacular cliffs and rock formations with shingle below the cliffs and a large expanse of sand at low tide.
- Northcott Mouth beach- Travelling north from Bude you Stumble across the Beach at Northcott Mouth, immediately you are hit by this vast expansive beautiful bay, stretching along the coast line for miles upon miles.
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition{{#if:{{{article|}}}| article {{#if:{{{url|}}}|[{{{url|}}}}} "{{{article}}}"{{#if:{{{url|}}}|]}}{{#if:{{{author|}}}| by {{{author}}}}}}}, a publication now in the public domain.
