Sidmouth (/ˈsɪdməθ/) is a town on the English Channel in Devon, South West England, 14 miles (23 km) southeast of Exeter.

With a population of 13,258 in 2021,[citation needed] it is a tourist resort and a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site.

However, the Sid Valley was divided into two ecclesiastical land holdings, with Sidbury and Salcombe Regis being gifted by King Athelstan to Exeter Cathedral, and Sidmouth, which was part of the manor of Otterton, was gifted by Gytha Thorkelsdóttir (the mother of King Harold Godwinson) to the Benedictines at Mont-Saint-Michel.

By the 1200s, Sidmouth had expanded to become a market town of similar size to Sidbury and generating more income for the abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel than Otterton.

[3] According to one of the many blue plaques found around Sidmouth, not far from the church was a chapel dedicated to St Peter built sometime before 1322, the remaining wall of which is now part of Dukes Hotel.

[5] During the 14th century, Sidmouth enjoyed a degree of prosperity from the wine trade and, as part of the manor of Otterton, was transferred by King Henry V from Mont-Saint-Michel to Syon Abbey.

King Henry VIII confiscated it again during the dissolution of the monasteries and sold it off, whereafter it changed hands several times before being acquired by the Mainwaring baronets, whose family provided two of the vicars of Sidmouth parish.

[8] According to one of the Sid Vale Association Blue Plaques, a fort was built in Sidmouth in 1628, due to fear of a French invasion or naval attack, on the part of the seafront that is known as 'Fortfield' and which is now the cricket pitch.

[9] Another of the Blue Plaques of the Sid Vale Association, confirms that the Old Ship pub (now a Costa Coffee) had operated as a tavern in Sidmouth since the 1400s and was used by smugglers.

[6][10] Sidmouth remained a village until the fashion for coastal resorts grew in the Georgian and Victorian periods of the 18th and 19th centuries.

[11] In 1819, George III's son Edward, Duke of Kent, his wife, and baby daughter (the future Queen Victoria) came to stay at Woolbrook Glen for a few weeks.

[13] In 2008, Canadian millionaire Keith Owen, who had been on holiday in the town and planned to retire there, bequeathed about £2.3 million to the community's civic society, the Sid Vale Association, upon learning that he had only weeks to live due to lung cancer.

A set of artificial rock islands was constructed to protect the sea front, and tons of pebbles were trucked in to replace the beach.

Irregular bus services connect to Exeter up to every half-hour by Stagecoach South West and to Honiton or Seaton.

Features of interest include the Duke of Kent Memorial Window, which Queen Victoria gave in 1867, and the reredos by Samuel Sanders Teulon.

Parts of the original fabric, such as the windows, were reused by the historian Peter Orlando Hutchinson in building a folly adjoining his house.

[27][28] The folly is the Old Chancel in Coburg Terrace which was started by Hutchinson in 1859, in protest over the destruction of the original church fabric during rebuilding.

[29] The church of All Saints, also Anglican (Taylor, architect, 1837), is in the Early English style with lancet windows and "oddly clumsy" pinnacles.

[31] After the Reformation, the Catholic Church returned to Sidmouth in 1880 with the arrival of exiled French Jesuits who were joined in 1881 by the Sisters of the Assumption.

The facility, completed in 1912, fell into disuse but was saved from demolition by the appeals of enthusiasts to East Devon District Council.

Since the change of format, the event has been held on a smaller scale, with no arena at the Knowle, though marquees are still erected in the Blackmore Gardens and The Ham at the eastern end of the town.

The popular late-night extra feature is also run at Bulverton on the edge of Sidmouth next to the main campsite.

Sidmouth has featured in various literary works, e.g. as "Stymouth" in Beatrix Potter's children's story The Tale of Little Pig Robinson (1930), in which the author included views of the beach and other parts of the Devon countryside.

"Baymouth" in William Makepeace Thackeray's Pendennis, and "Spudmouth" in The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood by Howard Pyle, are both based on the town.

He chose it as the subject of the first programme of the television series John Betjeman in the West Country that he wrote and presented in 1962.

The Esplanade is the sea front road from the red cliffs of Salcombe Hill in the east towards Jacob's Ladder Beach at the west.

The principal revenue is from tourism, with a wide range of hotels and guest houses, as well as self catering accommodation in the local area.

[51] There are pubs, restaurants, coffee houses and tea rooms; also an indoor swimming pool, a sports hall at the leisure centre, and a golf course.