White Cliff, Seaton
Sidmouth, the "Baymouth" of Thackeray's Pendennis, set among beautiful hills, and one of the pleasantest of west-country watering-places, was once a port, with valuable pilchard fisheries. But its harbour has been destroyed by repeated falls of rock from its grand cliffs of deep red sandstone, the Sid is silted up with sand and shingle, and the pilchards have left this part of the coast. About a mile west of Sidmouth is the beautiful headland of High Peak, whose summit, 511 feet above the sea, is the most lofty point on the south coast of Devon. Just beyond it is the popular bathing-place of Ladram Cove, whose firm sands are fringed with brightly-coloured pebbles. Rather more than two miles farther on is the estuary of the Otter, a harbour 500 years ago, but now, like so many of these river mouths, barred with shingle. Close to the estuary lies the quiet little town of Budleigh Salterton, set in a beautiful valley, famous for its mild climate and its luxuriant vegetation. Some five miles of coast-line—broken half-way by Straight Point, beyond which the shore is low—extend from Budleigh to the mouth of the Exe, the widest of Devonshire estuaries, but almost closed by a long bar of grass-grown sand called the Warren, on which, during the Civil War, stood a Royalist fort mounting sixteen guns. Exmouth, at the east side of the estuary, formerly a fishing-village, is now a highly popular watering-place.
Parson and Clerk Rocks, Dawlish
Four miles farther on, in a little bay walled-in by lofty cliffs of deep red sandstone, is Dawlish, noted for its warm climate and its good sands. At the eastern end of the bay is a rock called the Langstone, and at the western end are the strange-looking pillars of red sandstone known as the Parson and Clerk. Teignmouth lies rather more than two miles S.S.W. of Dawlish, with picturesque red cliffs and firm sands all the way, at the mouth of the estuary of the river Teign, whose swiftly-flowing stream is here crossed by one of the longest wooden bridges in England. It is a small port and a very popular watering-place, with beautiful inland scenery behind it, and inside the Den—the dune or sand-bank which bars a great part of the river's mouth—is a good harbour for vessels of light draught. Teignmouth is one of the towns that in the past have suffered from the attacks of the French, who burnt it in 1347 and again in 1690.