Thomas Hardy names the village as Sidlinch or Broad Sidlinch in his story 'The Grave by the Handpost' (1897) published in The Changed Man and Other Tales (1913).
These names are reminiscent of previous forms of the village's name, such as 'Broadsidlynch' in 1333 
and 'Brodesedelyng', in a legal record, in Latin, dated 1440, where John Tidde was a clerk.

The parish church was used as a location in the 1967 film adaptation of Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, in a scene that involved water pouring from one of the church's gargoyles onto the grave of Fanny Robin.

The Sydling valley is used as a location within Geoffrey Household's 1939 novel Rogue Male.
Thomas Hardy names the village as Sidlinch or Broad Sidlinch in his story 'The Grave by the Handpost' (1897) published in The Changed Man and Other Tales (1913). These names are reminiscent of previous forms of the village's name, such as 'Broadsidlynch' in 1333 
and 'Brodesedelyng', in a legal record, in Latin, dated 1440, where John Tidde was a clerk.
The parish church was used as a location in the 1967 film adaptation of Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd, in a scene that involved water pouring from one of the church's gargoyles onto the grave of Fanny Robin.
The Sydling valley is used as a location within Geoffrey Household's 1939 novel Rogue Male.
Sydling St Nicholas