Bude Castle

Bude Castle

Bude Castle is located to the west of Bude town centre close to Summerleaze Beach, on an island of land between Bude Canal and the River Neet. The Victorian engineer and inventor Sir Goldsworthy Gurney built his home here in a location originally on the sand, challenged by the locals who said it couldn't be done. "Wait and see..." was Gurney's reply and the result (Bude Castle) is now a heritage centre which rests on an innovative concrete raft foundation.

Gurney invented limelight and his Bude Lights (oxygen-accelerated oil lamps) which were used to light the House of Commons for more than 60 years. His other achievements included extinguishing a mine fire known as "the burning waste of Clackmannan" that had been burning for 30 years by using a steam jet to smother it with a mixture of nitrogen and carbon dioxide and subsequently a spray of water to cool the mine.

The 9 metre conical monument of polished concrete erected outside Bude Castle is named the Bude Light in dedication to Gurney, painted in the colours of sea, sky and sand and lit with fibre-optics which are a little more suited to both the outdoors and health-and-safety than his original lighting systems involving naked flames and pure oxygen.

On walks

Get the iWalkCornwall app

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Download the app and use it to explore the walks and to purchase a guided route.
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The app will direct you to the start of the walk via satnav.
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The app guides you around the walk using GPS, removing any worries about getting lost.
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The walk route is described with detailed, regularly-updated, hand-written directions.
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Each time there is a new direction to follow, the app will beep to remind you, and will warn you if you go off-route.
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A map shows the route, where you are at all times and even which way you are facing.
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Each walk is packed with information about the history and nature along the route, from over a decade of research than spans more than 3,000 topics.
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Once a walk is downloaded, the app doesn't need a phone or wifi signal during the walk.
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The app counts down distance to the next direction and estimates time remaining based on your personal walking speed.
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We keep the directions continually updated for changes to the paths/landmarks - the price for a walk includes ongoing free updates.