About the Business
One of the first Regency houses to be built on the seafront in Sidmouth was Wallis's Marine Library and Reading Rooms. This was the early nineteenth-century meeting place for Sidmouth's fashionable summer visitors. John Wallis d. 1818 was a London game, book, map and print maker and seller, operating from 1775, when his business was called the Map Warehouse. The Library was first opened to the Public, June 20th, 1809, and this romantic watering-place at length boasted what it had long desired, a lounging place in a conspicuous and pleasant situation, where articles of fancy, as well as information and utility, may be met with; where the news of the day may be collected and discussed.
No situation can be more favourable for all these purposes than the Royal Marine Library. This establishment was long awaited in Sidmouth. In 1815 HMS Bellerophon passed this way with Napoleon on board. All the hire telescopes at the Library were taken.
Location & Hours
The Esplanade
