Of Dartmoor and its Borderland, 173 cross the stream by a single stone clapper, eleven-and- a-half feet in length, and about three feet wide. This has the date 1705 cut upon it in one place, and in another the letters B D A, with the date 1737. Beyond this we pass the ruins of Lambsdown Farmhouse, and after crossing another little stream shall make our way over the common in the direction of Brent Hill, now in full view, and to which we are very near. Soon we shall enter upon a lane, and on arriving at a point where it is crossed by another shall find a directing-stone, standing in a little open space. The letters it bears are not cut in relief like those on the stone at Cross Furzes, but are incised. There are four, and they show the traveller the roads leading to Plympton or Ply- mouth, Totnes, Ashburton and Tavistock.* Here we strike
- The track to Tavistock, the direction of which is indicated on this
stone and on the one we have just noticed, was the Abbots' Way, that ancient road, it is thus evident, still being used after the monks were driven from the abbeys with which it communicated. From Broad Rock (p. 72) the branch followed by travellers was in all probability that which led by Plym Steps to Marchants Cross (p. 73), where they would enter upon the road running 'through Dousland, near which place formerly stood the ancient Yanedone Cross, as mentioned in a previous chapter <p. 68). Having learnt from Mi*. Aaron Rowe, of Princetown, that some worked stones were to be seen on Burham Farm, which is not far from Dousland, I have recently visited it in his company, and made an exam- ination of them. One appears to be part of the shaft of a cross, and as it is not far from the holed stone already described (p. 68) there is certainly^ reason for supposing that one belonged to the other, and that the latter is a true socket-stone. This possible fragment of Yanedone Cross will be found on the right of the lane leading from Dousland to Walkhampton, acting as a post in the gateway of a Aeld belonging to the above-named farm. It is two-and-a-half feet in height and three feet in girth. The corners are cut away, and have a shallow groove sunk in the bevel ; the stone is very much worn. Another of the stones forms part of the coping on the wall of the garden in front of the farmhouse, but the most curious are found at the gate in the way leading from there to Walkhampton. One of these, which has not all its sides worked, is three feet high and serves as a post ; the other is laid on the top of the hedge and is rather elaborately worked. It measures twenty-two inches by sixteen inches, and is not unlike part of a pedestal. Whether these stones ever helped to form a stepped base of a cross it is impossible to say ; they may have formed part of some building near by, or have been brought from the church. The gate-posts of the gardens of some cottages close to the entrance to Town Farm in Walkhampton village, it is plainly to be seen were fashioned for another purpose than that which they now serve.
