parclose to the south transept, and the altar-tomb of Margaret Courtenay, granddaughter of Edward IV.; the tower is octagonal in the uppermost story, the vicarage was built 1524; Colcombe Castle, once a seat of the Courtenays earls of Devon, now a farm-house; the gatehouse of Shute; and the farmhouse of Ashe, near Musbury, the birthplace of the great Duke of Marlborough, July 5, 1650; stand in the midst of a circle of Roman camps. SIDMOUTH Nestles in a cleft-like valley, a gentle descent between two steeps, intersected by a rivulet called the Sid, which ripples out of a little pool into the sea. The two high promontories which flank it are Salcombe Hill on the east, and High Peak on the west. They are very lofty eminences, 500 feet in height, abrupt but not rocky, rich pastures extending to their very brows, the sharp outlines of which are softened by hanging plants, constantly swaying to the breeze. The soil is marl and old red sandstone, capped with green-sand; seams of grey and yellow traverse the broad spaces of crimson. Flints fallen from the chalk form the shingle along a shore streaked at intervals by ruddy rivulets, which, trickling from the land-springs, are tinted by the earth above. Rubia peregrina, lathyrus aphaca, L. sylvestris, splachnum ampullaceum, and crambe maritima are found here; and among the pebbles, chalcedony, moss-agate, and jaspers-red, yellow, and green. Part of the east cliff fell in 1849, and about forty years since a mass 70 ft. high, and 175 ft. in circumference, slid down from the High Peak into the sea, and grounded half a mile from the shore; it was covered with fossils, and a hard ferruginous substance. In 1811 an attempt was made to construct a harbour here, but it failed. The Chitrock, an interesting break in the sea view, which the fishermen visited in annual procession, fell during a terrible storm, which tore up the beach, Nov. 29, 1824. In 1840, SIDMOUTH. 417 a bronze Chiron, the head of a Roman standard, 7 inches long, was found under the cliff; it probably belonged to a cohort of the 11th legion of Carausius. The church of St. Nicholas (H. F. Hamilton, V.) is of the fifteenth century ; it contains a monument to Dr. Currie, the biographer of Burns. There is also a chapel (H. Gibbes, P. C.) dedicated to All Saints. The esplanade and sea-wall, 1700 ft. long, were built by G. H. Julian in 1838. The town contributed two small ships to the siege of Calais. At Woodbrook Glen the Duke of Kent died, 1820; the Earl of Buckinghamshire resides on the terrace. Knowle Cottage, containing a curious miscellaneous collection made by Mr. Fish, is open on Mondays to the public. David Roberts was here making some of his exquisite sketches in 1845. The population of the town in 1831 was 3126, in 1851, 3441. Sidmouth gives the title of viscount to the family of Addington (Jan. 12, 1805). Salcombe Hill commands a magnificent panorama, extending over a circle of from thirty to forty miles. Salcombe Regis (two miles) has the distinction of having been the last place which held out for Charles I. in Devon; its fort was compelled to surrender, June 1646. The church of SS. Mary and Peter has a Norman tower. The church of St. Giles, Sidbury, is mixed Norman and Perpendicular. On Sidbury Hill (41⁄2 miles) is a Roman camp on the narrow tongue of the hill, with a single entrance: the camp is 1400 ft. long, by 300 ft. broad. Sidford (two miles) was the scene of a narrow escape of Charles II. from his pursuers. At Ladram Bay, westward, the view is very fine, with the waves ever chafing and booming under the cliff, in which a natural arch has been hollowed out by the billows of the eternal sea. At Nattington (three miles) was. born the learned Dr. John Conant. Ottery St. Mary, which derives its name from its situation on the river-bank (Otter-rie) is six miles north from Sidmouth. The ancient church of SS. Mary and Edward was given by Edward the Confessor to the cathedral of Rouen, but in 1335 Bishop Grandison converted it into a collegiate church. Walter Bronescombe, Bishop of Exeter 1257-1280, commenced the re-building, and Bishop Grandison completed the structure in the latter end of the fourteenth century. The Dorset chapel, which is of the beginning of the sixteenth century, and situated on the north-west side of the nave, has the arms of Bishops Courtenay, 1478-87, and Veysey, 1519. The north tower is crowned with a spire. The exterior is bold and simple, the grouping of the towers, chapels, and porches effective. The west front presents three stories; in the lower is a deeply recessed doorway, parted by a pillar; above it are five lancets included in a segmental arch; in the gable is a niche, with the mutilated image of St. Mary between two trefoiled lights. The south porch was built before 1587. The aisle windows are of two-lights; the clerestory has three trefoiled lights within a segmental arch. The parapet, of the sixteenth century, is battlemented. The south tower is Early English: in the upper story there are three lancets on each face, under a string course enriched with corbel-heads the parapet is pierced with trefoiled openings; short pinnacles flank the angles. The ritual choir extends three bays into the nave, and is laid with Minton's tiles. The chancel is of six bays, and resembles the nave; the parapet, however, is not embattled. From the fourth bay projects an Early English chapel, with a parvise above it. The Lady Chapel of three bays is Decorated. The east end has an eight-light window, with a canopied niche on either side. In the gable, which is crowned with a cross, are three niches. The Dorset, or north-west chapel, is Perpendicular, corresponding with the nave, and of six bays, which are separated by buttresses of three stages. The windows are of three lights, and the parapet battlemented. The central bay is filled by a porch and parvise. In the interior the nave piers support two centred arches; over each, in place of a triforium, there is a niche for a statue ; the ceiling is two-centred and simple; that of the aisles four-centred. The Dorset chapel has a rich fan-traceried groining and pierced pendants; the corbels represent angels. The roofs of the transepts are groined. The stilted central lancets upon the east side denote the site of an altar. In the choir the ceiling resembles, but is more elaborate than, that of the nave. The reredos of stone was restored by Blore. The high pace is elevated upon three steps; behind the altar are five canopied niches, once filled with pictures. On either side are three trefoiled niches, with brackets for images. Above a string course are three very large canopied niches for groups of statuary, set between buttressed panels. Three other niches, which once probably contained a rood with SS. Mary and John, fill the arch above a rich and embattled cornice. About sixty years ago the beautiful oak rood-screen was removed; in the north aisle the bench ends are late 15th century work; the ancient misereres have been restored to the choir; five on each side with a single return, are set in the third bay eastward from the transept, which is parted off from it by a low solid screen of oak. To the eastward two stone steps lead up to a vacant bay before the sanctuary, which is fenced in by a screen formed out of a parclose of the 14th century. A rich pavement is laid down, round an altar of old woodwork, covered with a stone slab. There are three beautiful canopied sedilia of stone on the south side. The Lady Chapel is parted off from the ambulatory by a beautiful stone gallery, supported on six shafts of Purbeck marble, reconstructed by Woodyer; tiles have been laid down, and stall work introduced. There are four stone sedilia on the south, with a waterdrain. The only monuments of interest are the effigies of Sir Otho Grandison, brother of the founder (died May 23, 1360), and of Beatrix Malmaynes, his wife, reposing under rich gabled canopies; and an incised stone to Archdeacon Northwood, the brass of which is gone. The organ is in the south transept. The church of St. Mary, Ottery, consists of a Decorated nave of five bays, with Early English aisles; a choir of the same period, the Early English aisles of which were chantries, St. Stephen's on the north, and 'St. Catharine's on the south; they have been restored by Rev. R. Podmore; two Early English transept towers, as at Exeter, Narbonne, and Chalons-sur-Marne ; and a Lady Chapel, Decorated, which has been restored for morning prayer by Mr. Woodyer. On the south side of the chapel are two windows of stained glass by O'Connor, one of them being a memorial to the late vicar, G. Smith. On the north side, the glazing of the north-east window is by O'Connor and that of the west lights by Warrington. In the lateral chapels the east windows are by Hardman, from designs by Pugin, on the north representing the Majesty, on the south the Crucifixion. The five small lancets in the north choir aisle are filled with glass by Warrington. The subject of the six-light west window of the north-west chapel, built by Cicely, Marchioness of Dorset, is the Transfiguration, by Wailes, who also glazed the great west window. Round the walls of the church will be observed quatrefoils representing the Blessed Virgin bearing a cross; they mark the spots which the bishop marked at the consecration with the Holy Chrism. Polychrome has been introduced along the vaulting, on the principles recommended by Ruskin and Chevreul; a rich effect of colour is produced, a harmonious but chastened brightness. But even in the places it has not touched it is remarkable how the impressive attributes of ancient architecture lie open, legible to every eye. Not one prominent feature exists in vain, or requires artificial illumination or pictorial effect. The beauty is distinct to the eye of him who understands neither the artistic merit nor the subtle lore of the builder; who only perceives the effect, but cannot follow out the science and invention, method and emotion, finish and fire, which ministered with deep-wrought foliage, twisted traceries, and burning pane to the luxury of the gaze. The whole church possesses a charm of contrast, a mingling of richness and simplicity, which endows it with a grace to which more imposing structures can offer no pretension. Coleridge, who often in early boyhood trod these aisles, no doubt was thinking of them when he wrote, "Gothic architecture impresses the beholder with a sense of annihilation; he becomes, as it |