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Local governmentBude 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 (local children's playground, Bude "castle"). 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 railwayBude was served by a branch of the London & South-Western railway until the line was closed under 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 CanalImage:Bude canal sea lock.JPG The sea lock on Bude Canal
The harbour proper, however, is a wharf on the Bude 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 [2] 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 'tub' boats of mineral-rich sand from the beaches at Bude and carry them inland for the sand to be used on the fields. A series of inclined planes carried the boats 400 vertical feet to Red Post where the canal branched south along the upper Tamar Valley towards Launceston, east to Holsworthy and north to the Tamar Lakes that fed the canal. 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. Image:Bude haven.JPG View looking towards the sea "Haven" from the sea lock In 2005 a major project to re-develop the canal was approved. Work included improving the banks and opening-up a long-closed section of canal. Temple of the WindsAt the northern most point of Efford Down Farm, over looking Summerleaze Beach and the breakwater, a former coastguard lookout stands. Known as Compass Point and built by the Acland family in 1840 of local sandstone, it is based on the Temple of Winds in Athens. It was moved to its current position in 1880. It is so called as it has points of the compass carved in each of its octagonal sides.[2] IndustryTourism is the main industry in the Bude area whilst 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 also golf links in the town. There is some local debate as to the origins of the golf course. It has been suggested the land the course occupies was given to the town for leisure use and that a few wealthy individuals took it tocreate a golf course excluding most of the townspeple from full enjoyment of the land. Bude has an industrial estate which houses Bott Ltd, who manufacture huge amounts of racking and tool holding accessories/storage for vans and workshops and Tripos Receptor Research who produce prototypes of drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. BeachesThere 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.
Image:Bude Beach.jpg View of the beach in Bude and the canal coming to an end as it reaches the sea lock (on left of image)
The beaches around Bude are the main reason that the town is a huge tourist resort for all ages during the summer and is catching up with its bigger neighbour Newquay further south. Landscape and geologyBude and the surrounding area has impressive coastal scenery. 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 Carboniferous 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 folded and contorted stratification of shale and sandstone, is unique in southern Britain (although the Gower Peninsula and the Vale of Glamorgan, across the Bristol Channel in Wales, have a similar stratification). During what is known as the Variscan Orogeny (which affected the entire 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 Carboniferous sandstone (most of the Cornish coast is made from Devonian slate, granite and Precambrian metamorphic rocks). The stratified cliffs of Bude give their name to a geological event called the Bude Formation. All these locations can be viewed from the South West Coast Path which passes through the town. The Bude 'Boom'On the 26th of October 2006 at approximately 11:50 am, Bude was the apparent epicentre of a loud and unexplained noise which rapidly became known as "The Bude Boom". The local media reported some damage to properties around the Bude area and local authorities received many calls about a suspected explosion, although no evidence was found to support this. Experts have ruled out the possibility of an earth tremor and have suggested that it may have been caused either by a military aircraft breaking the sound barrier[3] or a meteor exploding in the atmosphere.[4] TwinningReferences
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