Sidbury is located within East Devon local authority area. Historically it formed part of East Budleigh Hundred. It falls within Ottery Deanery for ecclesiastical purposes. The Deaneries are used to arrange the typescript Church Notes of B.F.Cresswell which are held in the Westcountry Studies Library. The population was 1233 in 1801 1076 in 1901 . Figures for other years are available on the local studies website. The lay subsidy of 1524 valued the community at £19/18/06. A market is recorded from 14 cent..

A parish history file is held in Sidmouth Library. You can look for other material on the community by using the place search on the main local studies database. Further historical information is also available on the Genuki website.

Maps: The image below is of the Sidbury area on Donn's one inch to the mile survey of 1765.

On the County Series Ordnance Survey mapping the area is to be found on 1:2,500 sheet 82/7 Six inch (1:10560) sheet 82NE
The National Grid reference for the centre of the area is SY138917. On the post 1945 National Grid Ordnance Survey mapping the sheets are: 1:10,000 (six inch to a mile: sheet SY19SW, 1:25,000 mapping: sheet Explorer 030, Landranger (1:50,000) mapping: sheet 192. Geological sheet 326 also covers the area.

Illustrations: The image below is of Sidbury as included in the Library's Etched on Devon's memory website. Other images can be searched for on the local studies catalogue.

Extract from Devon by W.G.Hoskins (1954), included by kind permission of the copyright holder:

SIDBURY is a large village in warm and fertile country. From the hills on three sides of the village magnificent views are to be had, especially over the sea from Portland Bill to beyond Berry Head. And far into Dorset. Roncombe Gate, formally a meeting place for the smuggling traffic from Beer, Branscombe and Salcombe, is one such viewpoint.

The village takes its name from the early Iron Age hill-fort to the SW., now known as Sidbury Castle. It is a kiteshaped earthwork, with a double rampart and ditch, and an entrance at the narrow NW. end. 1,300 ft. long internally, and 400ft. wide at the maximum, it is the largest earthwork in the district.

Sidbury church (St. Giles) is one of the most interesting in Devon. Restoration work on the chancel in 1898-9 revealed a Saxon crypt underneath, the precise date of which is unknown. The structural history of the Norman and later church may be summarised as follows: (a) an early 12th century church of nave and chancel only, of which considerable parts remain; (b) a W. tower and N. and S. aisles added late in the 12th century; (c) the chancel lengthened c. 1260-80, and N. an d S. transepts either added or remodelled; (d) a substantial reconstruction in the mid 15th century, in which the aisles were rebuilt, the walls of the nave raised and fine wagon roofs inserted throughout the church, new windows inserted at various points in the church and a new font put in. Some extensive repair work was carried out early in the 17th century by John Stone, freemason (probably the father of the famous Nicholas Stone), whose tomb dated 1617 is in the S. wall (outside) of the chancel. In 1843-5 the Norman tower was taken down and rebuilt to the old design; the spire was added in 1895.

There several interesting buildings in the parish. The Porch House in Sidford is dated 1574, and there are other houses worth looking for in this village, and on the road to Sidbury village. Manstone Farm has some considerable remains of old work, some of medieval date. Sand Barton, 1 m. NE. of the church, is first mentioned c. 1175. The present house was built by Rowland Huyshe in 1594-1600 and is a good example of a late Tudor mansion. Court Hall has some Elizabethan work. Buckton and Harcombe farms are both mentioned c. 1200 in the and chapter archives at Exeter.