Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/516

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

Of Dartmoor a fid %ts Borderland. 137 of Shilston Farm that many years ago he took an old cross to some place near Sands Gate and made it into a foot- bridge. It is not stated whence this was removed, but as Stone Cross is near at hand it is very probable that it was taken from that spot. It is also stated that another called Stumpy Cross used to stand in the vicinity of Chagford — I have heard Drewston mentioned as being the spot — but I can gain no positive information respecting it. In the romantic gorge of Fingle, where the scenery is perhaps unsurpassed in Devonshire, the visitor will also find some objects of antiquity, and among them a stone, standing by the wayside, on which is an incised cross. The gorge is somewhat outside the range of country over which our investigations extend, but a notice of the stone seems desira- ble nevertheless. It will be found beside the zig-zag road that leads from Cranbrook Castle to Fingle Bridge, on the right side in descending, and at a point where a path, of which there are several, diverges from the main one. Mr. Ormerod took a photograph of this stone in 1863, but it would appear that it was afterwards thrown down, for, writing in 1874, he states that he had not during a few years previous to that date been able to find it. In the same year I also visited the woods, and passed down the road from Cranbrook, but could see nothing of the stone. It has, however, been for a long time replaced. It is about three feet high, and not quite two feet wide. The upright line of the incised cross measures fourteen inches, and the line forming the arms ten inches. Chagford was one of the four stannary towns of Devon. The others we have already visited — Plympton, Tavistock and Ashburton. In the vicinity remains of tin-streaming operations are extensive. The church, which is dedicated to St. Michael, was restored in 1865. Some few years after this date the rood-loft stairs were cleared out, when the upper portions of four granite crosses were discovered. These were probably placed here about the commencement of the second half of the sixteenth century, as in a series of accounts of various wardens and guilds of Chagford, there are several entries showing that numerous alterations were then made in the interior of the church.