Sidford is a small

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred ...

in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

of and on the outskirts of the

town A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world. Origin and use The word "town" shares an ori ...

Sidmouth Sidmouth () is a town on the English Channel in Devon, South West England, southeast of Exeter. With a population of 12,569 in 2011, it is a tourist resort and a gateway to the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. A large part of the town h ...

in the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

county of

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

. It has a population of just over 2,100 people according to the 2001 Census. The

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

Church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

, St Peter's, is part of the Sid Valley Mission. It gets its name from being on the

River Sid The River Sid, situated in East Devon, is often claimed to be the shortest complete river in England. It flows for southwards from a source in Crowpits Covert (OSGB36 Grid reference SY138963) at a height of 206 metres above sea level. Thsourceis ...

, which runs for four miles into

Lyme Bay Lyme Bay is an area of the English Channel off the south coast of England. The south western counties of Devon and Dorset front onto the bay. The exact definitions of the bay vary. The eastern boundary is usually taken to be Portland Bill on the ...

at Sidmouth. One can walk along the river down the Byes into Sidmouth and to the sea. There is a 12th-century

packhorse bridge A packhorse bridge is a bridge intended to carry packhorses (horses loaded with sidebags or panniers) across a river or stream. Typically a packhorse bridge consists of one or more narrow (one horse wide) masonry arches, and has low parapets so ...

over the river that was the site of a 1644 skirmish in the

English Civil War The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...

. In the village centre there is a small Spar supermarket with a post office, a fish and chip shop, Bloaters. There is also a hairdresser, a sports injury clinic, a pub called the Rising Sun and a veterinary surgery. The Salty Monk opposite the Church is a sixteenth century building operated as a bed and breakfast. In sport, there is the Sidford

Tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

Club, and Sidmouth Rugby Club also have training pitches there. Sidford's most famous pub is the Blue Ball Inn, a 14th-century lodging house that burned to the ground in 2007 and is now rebuilt. Sidford’s two pubs suffer chimney fires
Sidmouth Herald. 28 January 2011

References

External links

{{Authority control Villages in Devon Sidmouth