The town is mentioned in Thackeray’s Pendennis, and was the home of the immortal Mrs. Partington, an old acquaintance of Sidney Smith; she is supposed to have lived in one of the cob cottages that used to be on the front.  Like the Lords with Reform, so was Mrs. Partington with the Atlantic Ocean, which she tried to keep out of her front door with a mop.  “She was excellent at slop or puddle, but should never have meddled with a tempest.”  If she was an actual character the good dame’s house probably stood where now the fine esplanade runs its straight course between Peak Hill and the Alma Bridge over the Sid.  At the bridge the shingle bank baulks the stream from a clear course into the sea and usually forces it into an ignominious and green scummed pool that slowly filters through the stony wall.  From the bridge a path ascends to the Flagstaff, where there is perhaps a better view than that from the much higher Peak Hill on the west.  Torbay, Start Point, and the south Devon coast are in full but distant view across the bay, but Teignmouth and Dawlish hide behind the promontory called Black Head.

The direct Honiton road goes up the valley of the Sid through pleasant Sidford, which has a fine old farmhouse called Manstone and a number of picturesque cottages, and through Sidbury, beneath the encampment called Sidbury Castle.  The Early Norman church at Sidbury is interesting.  Alterations at various dates have given the building thirteenth-century transepts and a roof and aisles dating from two hundred years later.  The fine Norman tower was entirely rebuilt about forty years ago when the two figures of SS.  Peter and Giles were found and placed on the new west face.  A Saxon crypt was discovered under the chancel when that portion was restored and a trap door gives access to this chamber from the floor.  The church porch has a room over it known to the villagers as the “Powder Room.”  It is thought that this formed a sort of magazine for the troops quartered in the neighbourhood during the Napoleonic wars.

The “Sid Bury” is the tree-clad hill on the west.  Upon its crown is an encampment with a ditch, its bottom 45 feet from the summit of the wall.  The view, except down the Sid valley to the sea, is restricted, but in every direction it is beautiful.

About half a mile north of the village is a fine old mansion called Sand, belonging to the Huish family and erected in the closing years of the sixteenth century.  It is now a farmhouse, but practically unaltered from its ancient state.

The coast from Sidmouth to the mouth of the Otter bends south-westwards in a long sweep and encloses within the peninsula thus formed the small and uninteresting village of Otterton that has on the other side of the river a station on the line running from Ottery St. Mary through Budleigh Salterton to Exmouth.  The fine Peak Hill has its western slopes running down to the Otter valley just north of Bicton Park, where is a magnificent arboretum.  The line from Sidmouth climbs round the northern slopes of the hill and drops into the valley at Tipton St. John’s.  The train then follows the waterside as closely as may be to Ottery St. Mary.  This beautifully placed town is as delightful and convenient to stay in as any in Devon.