Sidmouth Devon CAM

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Festive Lights Place: Sidmouth Category: Christmas Lights Please select a size: 800x600 - 1024x768 About: The strings of brightly coloured Christmas lights add plenty of Christmas festive spirit to Sidmouth town. Photograph Added: 20th December 2006

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Department Store Place: Sidmouth Category: Christmas Lights Please select a size: 800x600 - 1024x768 About: Fields of Sidmouth has a wonderful display of Christmas lights. The blue and gold festive lights look truly magnificent and make a focal point at the end of the town. Photograph Added: 20th December 2006

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Christmas Reindeer Place: Sidmouth Category: Christmas Lights Please select a size: 800x600 - 1024x768 About: The shops windows in Sidmouth were fascinating to look at. This adorable reindeer slowly nodded his head and looked out with doleful eyes. Photograph Added: 20th December 2006

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Christmas Tree Place: Sidmouth Category: Christmas Lights Please select a size: 800x600 - 1024x768 About: The Christmas tree at Sidmouth looks very smart with the gold and blue decorations of 'Fields of Sidmouth' the town's department store in the background Photograph Added: 20th December 2006

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Fields of Sidmouth Place: Sidmouth Category: Christmas Lights Please select a size: 800x600 - 1024x768 About: Fields started as a drapers and has been trading in Sidmouth since 1809. Every year they have a fantastic display of Christmas lights. Photograph Added: 20th December 2006

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About Sidmouth Devon.

Today Sidmouth still has a unique charm, which attracts thousands of tourists every year The town has beautiful gardens, plenty of fascinating walks, fine hotels, clean beaches and interesting shops and because Sidmouth lies beneath the majestic red cliffs and the green hills of the glorious Sid valley, it is not only picturesque but also enjoys a very mild climate.
The River Sid is one of Englands shortest rivers rising to the east of Ottery St. Mary and flowing through the valley for just four miles before flowing into the sea at Sidmouth
Sidmouths popularity as a seaside resort took off in the late 18th and early 19th century when the leisure classes could not holiday on the continent because of Napoleons conquest of Europe. The opportunity to indulge in the new fashion of bathing in the sea and the relatively easy route from London to Sidmouth transformed a run down fishing village into a boom town for upper class visitors. By the 19th century Sidmouth had become one if the most select seaside resorts in Europe with a grand Esplanade. And today the elegant Regency style of seaside architecture is known as cottage orne the buildings were mostly cream and white, there was also a mass of wrought iron balconies with wooden balconies made to look like wrought iron and entertainingly shaped windows. Many of these cottages have now been converted into impressive hotels.
In 1801 Jane Austen holidayed in Sidmouth and is reported to have fallen in love with a clergyman. In the 1830s William Makepeace Thackeray was also a visitor and he renamed the town Baymouth in his semi- autobiographical work Pendennis. Beatrix Potter was also a visitor on a few occasions but the town is most renowned as the residence of the Duke of Kent who in 1819 lived in what is now the Royal Grand Hotel. He came to Sidmouth to escape his creditors and had his mail directed to Salisbury but he took great pleasure in showing off his young daughter Victoria and so it is at Sidmouth that Queen Victoria got her first sight of the sea. Fifty years later the Queen presented and dedicated a stained glass window to Sidmouth parish church in memory of her father.
A week-long annual folk festival, is held at Sidmouth in early August with concerts, ceilidhs, workshops, top bands, Morris dancers, folk singers and even clog dancers from all over the world.