Beer will receive a donation of �500 from Lord Clinton’s Charitable Trust to spend on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Read this and more.

JUBILEE DONATION: Beer will receive a donation of �500 from Lord Clinton’s Charitable Trust to spend on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee. Each town and parish within Clinton Devon Estates is being offered the money to support an event or activity to mark the occasion. Clinton Devon Estates has been keen to support the Woodland Trust’s initiative to plant new woodland in 2012, and encourages towns and parishes to plant trees to mark the Jubilee, but Beer Parish Council say it may be used for something different in the village if deemed more practical

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CHURCH WALK: St Winifred’s in Branscombe has organised another church walk, to take place on Friday, March 9. It is open to all, and will begin at the Village Hall. Between 10am and 10.30am. Scheduled to last two hours there will then be a bring-and-share light lunch at 5 Mill Lane in Branscombe for those who would like to come. Call 01297 680424 to confirm numbers for lunch.

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STREET PARTY: A community street party to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee will take place in Beer on Sunday, June 3 from 4pm to 6pm. Gayle Chapple, who organised a similar street party last year for the Royal Wedding, said it will be on Fore Street in the village, stretching from the Dolphin Hotel down to the Anchor Inn. A beacon accompanied by dancing and music will take place the following day, but organisers have yet to decide where in Beer it will be lit.

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SCRABBLE CLUB: The next Branscombe Scrabble Club meeting will be on Tuesday, March 6, at 2.30pm at Summerway, Parsons Lane. The group has now been meeting for a year and offers a warm welcome for new members, beginners included.

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LENT LUNCH: St Winifred’s Church in Branscombe is organising a simple Lent lunch with the aim of raising money for a charity. The event will be in the Village Hall on Saturday, March 3, and will begin at noon, and all villagers are asked to come and support the lunch.

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TITHE MAPS: The next Branscombe Project winter talk will look at how volunteers have made all the tithe maps for East Devon parishes available for public use for the fist time.

Phil Planel will speak about the work of the In the Footsteps of Peter Orlando Hutchinson project, and take a look at how the initative has increased awareness of the historical maps and their connections to the landscape.

Hutchinson, Sidmouth’s great Victorian historian, archaeologist and watercolourist, mapped, illustrated or excavated prehistoric sites and old buildings all around East Devon.

Phil has been helping local groups to follow where Hutchinson led, surveying and conserving neglected monuments, identifying forgotten standing stones, and studying his detailed paintings for clues to changes in the landscape.

The talk will also focus on the work of the now completed Parishscapes project, which demonstrated how a community project can deliver worthwhile results

It takes place on Monday, February 27, at 7.30pm in Branscombe Village Hall.