The Irishman's Wall

[There are two similar legends I know of this wall, differing only in one small detail. One I read of some time ago, and one I heard from a Dartmoor parks guide who grew up in Belston.

The Irishman's Wall, on Belstone parish dates back to the time of the enclosures. At this time a rich newcomer turned up - either that or he had been long away from the parish, perhaps in Ireland, amassing much wealth.  He decided to put his wealth to work, and at that age, as now, money meant a lot to the law of the land, if not its people. Employing incomers to work for him (the wall is not a typical Dartmoor construction) - again, possibly from Ireland - he set to work enclosing a large area of the common of Belstone for his private use. This was a barbaric time, and across the land the poor people suffered greatly, and the wedge of greed  was well and truly driven home between the peasant and the land.  If completed the wall would have deprived many of the villagers of the food in their belly, the peat in their hearths, and even the stone to repair their houses with.

Here the written and the told stories diverge a fraction.  The written version (I cannot recall the book) tells of how while the rich man's lackeys built the wall over the breast of the hill the locals followed just out of site over the brow knocking it down.

The guide told a slightly more cunning story - he said the locals waited till pretty much the day it was finished, when the rich man had sunk all his assets into it. That night they went out on mass and before dawn broke every foot of the wall was torn down and scattered - the common of Belstone could not be enclosed!  When sun rose not a villager was to be seen, but the rich man was ruined, and to this day the land of Belstone parish is unenclosed.]