'The Manor of Sidelham, or Sidraham, now called Sydenham, appears to have been originally held by four Saxon Thanes, whose names have not been preserved, and to have passed from them into the hands of that powerful noble, Judhaell de Totnais. On his banishment by William Rufus, his property was confiscated, and Sydenham gave its name to a family who still possessed it in the reign of Henry III, and was succeeded by a family called Mauris, from whom it passed in marriage to Trevage, and from Trevage to Wise. Part of the house dates from the fourteenth century, and is said to have originally formed a quadrangle or H, but in the reign of Elizabeth it was built into the shape of an E, and is a very perfect example of Tudor domestic architecture. 'Sir Edward Wise, in the reign of James I, very much beautified the house, and legend says that he tried to add such height and such an amount of granite to it that Risdon writes, "The very foundations were ready to reel under the burthen." The house lies in a lovely wooded valley on the banks of the River Lyd, and it has four separate entrances, each opening on to a court or garden. Access to the front-entrance--commonly called the Green Court--is through a fine iron gateway, and above the central door are the Wise arms. Most of the windows have eight rounded granite mullions and small leaded panes of glass, and in some the original glass still remains. Two windows in the front are of Charles I.'s date, and have quaint fan-shaped lights. Over the large granite open fireplace in the front-hall is the date 1656, when the house underwent repair after damage, caused, it is said, in the Civil Wars. There is a story repeated in many histories of Devon, and told by Lysons amongst others, that Sydenham was taken in 1644 by Colonel Holborne; but I have every reason to believe that the Sydenham garrisoned and taken was Combe Sydenham, in the parish of Stogumber, near Taunton, but the fact that within the last forty years a sword and other weapons, also seventeenth-century horseshoes, have been found may be taken as a proof that fighting of some sort did take place. 'In making alterations in the kitchen chimney some twenty years ago, a little hiding-place, or priest's room, was found opening out of it, and in it was an oak table and the remains of a chair; and since then large and small unsuspected rooms have been discovered, and it has been said that in the largest a troop could lie hidden--as indeed it could with ease. Quite recently a secret passage leading from the house towards the river has been found, bearing out the legend always handed down, "that the Lady Wise of the day escaped with a large party by a secret passage near the river, and got into the woods undetected by the soldiers who were round the house." It is very probable that the secret rooms mentioned and the passage communicated.