Surf museum project for Braunton wins charity status

REGISTERED Charity status has been granted to the Museum of British Surfing, which is due to open in Braunton next year. North Devon Plus is helping to get the core funding in place for the project founded by former ITV news reporter Peter Robinson. Th

REGISTERED Charity status has been granted to the Museum of British Surfing, which is due to open in Braunton next year.

North Devon Plus is helping to get the core funding in place for the project founded by former ITV news reporter Peter Robinson.

"This is wonderful news and a massive boost for the museum project," he said. "It is recognition of Britain's surfing heritage and our status as the national body to preserve and celebrate this amazing history on behalf of the British public.

"It is also formal backing for the work we are planning to do on education, the environment and health through surfing."

The museum project has won support from all over the world and partnerships are being established with the British Surfing Association, the University of Pymouth surf science degree and Surfers Against Sewage as well as local organisations, such as the Biosphere Reserve.

The first Britons to go surfing were members of Captain James Cook's crew in 1779. The earliest references to surfing in Britain date back to the mid-1800s and film exists in the museum's archive of a group of surfers taking to the waves in Cornwall on a home-made wooden longboard in 1929.