SIDMOUTH  , a

market town and watering-place in the Honiton parliamentary division of Devonshire, England, on the river Sid and the English Channel, 1674 m . W. by S. of London, by the London & South-Western railway . Pop. of urban district (1901) 4201 . Lying in a hollow, the town is shut in by hills which terminate in the forelands of Salcombe and High Peak, two sheer cliffs of a deep red colour . The shore line curves away, beyond these, westward to the Start and eastward to Portland—both visible from Sidmouth beach . The restored church of St Nicholas, dating from the 13th century, though much altered in the 15th, contains a window given by Queen Victoria in 1866 in memory of her father, the duke of Kent, who lived at Woolbrook Glen, close by, and died there in 1820 . An esplanade is built along the sea-wall, and the town possesses golf links and other recreation grounds . The bathing is good, the climate warm . Formerly of some importance, the harbour can no longer be entered by large vessels, and goods are transhipped into flat-bottomed lighters for conveyance ashore . Fishing is extensively carried on and cattle fairs are held . In the 13th century Sidmouth was a borough governed by a port-reeve . Tradition tells of an older town buried under the sea; and Roman coins and other remains have been washed up on the beach .

Traces of an

ancient camp exist on High Peak .