At the 2001 census, the parish, which includes the villages of Metcombe, Fairmile, Alfington, Tipton St John, Wiggaton, and (until 2017) West Hill, had a population of 7,692.

Ottery provides services, employment, and a wide range of shopping for local residents and visitors from nearby villages and towns.

[7][8] Within the parish lies Chettisholt, noted as one of the fairly small number of Common Brittonic place-names surviving in England.

The first element of this name is the Brittonic word which survives in modern Welsh as coed ("wood"); the last is the Old English word holt, also meaning "wood", added to the name when its original meaning had been lost due to the dominant language of the area switching from Brittonic to Old English.

[9][10]: 292 Archaeological excavations in 2014, in advance of a housing development at Island Farm, uncovered a medieval longhouse dating to AD.1250–1350.

The Listing summary states: "Dates from the days of the College but little trace of antiquity remains, mainly enclosed by large brick outer additions by Butterfield including a 3rd storey, extending also above the C18 ...

[16] The property remained in the Coleridge family until 2006, when it was sold to Max Norris who completed a major renovation over five years.

[17] A report in June 2020 describes The Chanter's House as having ten bedrooms, 11 bathrooms and a library (built by Coleridge) with 22,000 books, purchased with the property in 2006.

Pevsner assumed that the tower-transepts and the outer walls of the chancel date back to 1260, and that the towers were built in imitation of those at Exeter.

[21] In 1335 John Grandisson, (1327–69), Bishop of Exeter, bought the manor and advowson from Rouen, and two years later converted the church into a collegiate foundation with forty members.

[22] His alterations included lowering the floor level of the transepts, crossing and western part of the chancel to that of the nave, and making the east end, designed for the needs of the collegiate foundation, more suitable for parochial use.

There is a small stone plaque commemorating the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who was born here on 21 October 1772, in the south churchyard wall.

The barrels, increasing in size up to 30 kg, are carried through the town centre, often packed with onlookers, in an exhilarating and risky spectacle.

[32] Generations of the same family have been known to compete across the years and it is thought that the event may have originated as a means of warding off evil spirits, similar to other British fire festivals, around the time of Halloween.

[33] On 30 October 2008 the annual event was threatened by a severe hailstorm, which hit East Devon shortly after midnight, with the Fire Service describing the situation in the Ottery St Mary area as "absolute chaos".

The flooding also caused problems on the Millennium Green, where the annual bonfire and fairground were being constructed in preparation for 5 November celebrations.

The clear-up operation was entirely successful, however, and both the carnival procession and the Tar Barrels and bonfire night celebrations went ahead as planned.

Tradition has it that the funerals of Old Ottregians always take place at 12.00 noon, with the funeral service commencing immediately following the playing of the Old Ottery song: The words are as follows ('kine' are cattle): Sweet-breathing kine, / The old grey Church, / The curfew tolling slow, / The glory of the Western Sky, / The warm red earth below.

The West for me!Within St Mary's Church, a colourful effigy of a soldier named John Coke can be found in a niche.

[38] A season 3 episode of the BBC radio comedy series Cabin Pressure features Ottery St Mary.

A newspaper report from the Exeter and Plymouth Gazette dated Friday, 1 June 1866, is summarized by historian J. Harris as follows: The fire started about noon and the raged through the homes and shops of about a quarter of the town, reducing everything to ashes.

A great part of the town extending westwards from the school to the silk factory in Mill Street was reduced to a heap of smouldering ruins.

[40]One evening in July 1980, a disaster was narrowly averted when an aircraft on approach to Exeter Airport crash-landed on the outskirts of town, in a field immediately south of the Salston Hotel.

The aircraft, an Alidair Vickers Viscount turboprop, flying 62 passengers from Santander in Spain to Exeter was 11 miles short of the runway over a wooded area on East Hill, just before the town, when it ran out of fuel and all four engines stopped.

The pilot, who knew the area, was able to bank left and glide over the town's southern edge and make a wheels-up crash-landing in a field.

The aircraft was put down at 19.53 hours, in daylight, near St Saviours' Bridge, in a small grassy valley studded with trees.

Meter indications on the refuelling vehicle at Santander, which could not have accurately reflected the quantity of fuel delivered, were also considered to have been a probable contributory factor.