Of Dartmoor and its Borderland. 73 common towards Sheepstor, as mentioned in the chapter deal- ing with the boundary crosses of the Lady Amicia's lands. The other branch it is difficult to trace with any degree of certainty. It seems to have passed very near to the springs of the Plym, where there is a ford, but the road shown on the recent Ordnance Map, and called the Abbots' Way, is for the most part a comparatively modern track, and it is unlikely that the monks' path took that course. We shall in fact meet with few traces of the old road beyond the ford. The traffic over this branch could never have been great, for unless with a special object the traveller from Buckfast to Tavistock would not be likely to choose this way. He would have found it more convenient to have followed the path from Broad Rock to Marchants Cross and thence to Whit- church Down. A short distance to the north-east of the cart track which runs over the hill in front of us, and on the side of the upper Swincombe Valley, a triangular shaped stone, having on it a rudely cut cross in relief, was discovered by Dr. A. B. Prowse in 1900. It may possibly have been removed from the Abbots' Way, but if it once formed the head ofthepillar near which it was found, as Dr. Prowse reasonably supposes, it is more probable that it served to mark the track described in the next chapter* Leaving the Plym we proceed in a direction north-west by north, passing over a ridge, where we shall find fairly good ground, and at the distance of about a mile and a half shall come in sight of an object at the foot of a slope which will cause us to quicken our steps towards it. This is Siward's Cross, a most interesting relic, and though not quite so high as Marchants Cross, is more massive, and is, in fact, the largest of the old crosses on Dartmoor. It is now more frequently called Nun's Cross, and is about two-and-a- half miles to the southward of Princetown. It is fixed in a socket cut in a block of stone sunk nearly level with the ground. In height it is seven feet four inches, and measures two feet eight inches across the arms. The width is rather greater across the head than lower down, being there one foot eight inches, while immediately below the arms it is but one foot six inches. Across the lower part of the shaft it is narrower still, for at the distance of one foot from the bottom it measures only one foot five inches, and below this it narrows gradually
