Cresswell 1921 finished!

Hooray!  All the folkloricly related text from a second book has been fully transcribed!

Surrounded by torn up bits of paper that where book marks. Phew!

Getting Hunts' Romances of the West of England done is a long term goal, but for the moment I will attempt to tidy up a few lose ends, such as Hope's Holy wells (Cornwall is all I have left to do there - the biggest entry of them all, of course.)

Our baby is not sleeping much at the moment, and I am going alternate with my wife all night, so I may not manage more than a Holy Well a day.

Oh well, at least Cresswell 1921 is now officially finished! My favorite thing she mentioned was the Horse pick-me-up...

Her reference again :-

Dartmoor with its Surroundings

With Map

A Handbook for Visitors

By Beatrix F. Cresswell

First published 1896

This edition (16th)1921

The Homeland Handbooks

London : The Homeland Association Ltd

From paper Book

(Oh and I love the cider drinking maid on the back cover!)

Dunnabriges Pound

Dunnabridge Pound - Image by Herbythyme [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

"Ascending the road from the [West Dart] river, a further walk of two miles will bring us to Dunnabridge Pound, which stands close to the right-hand side of the way. Mr. Page describes this as "an enclosure of uncertain age, and in itself in no wise remarkable." Its frequent mention, however, in documents connected with the forest endow it with considerable interest. It is still used for impounding cattle, especially those left unclaimed after the drifts. Our particular interest will be the the Judges Chair, at the entrance of the pound, surely one of the seats of the mighty. It consists of a roofing slab eight feet long, with supporters six feet high on either side, bellow which some blocks of stone form seats, another large slab serving as a back to the chair. Mr Bray, of course, saw in this the seat of an archdruid or president of some court of judicature. It is popularly supposed to be the Judges Chair of the Miners' Parliament, brought from Crockern Tor together with the Judge's Table, which may be seen in a less complete condition at Dunnabridge Farm, close by. Some antiquaries have judged the chair to be the remains of a cromlech erected in the circle which doubtless was the origin of the pound. One can hardly imagine that at a time when little respect was paid to rude stone monuments the Judge's table and chair, with their huge stones, were taken from Crockern Tor, several miles away, to Dunnabridge for preservation, and Mr. Crossing suggests that in the popular story confusion has arisen between Dunnabridge Farm and Dunnabridge Pound, the stone, which really does seem, from the evidence we posses, to have been taken from Crockern Tor, being at the former place."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Dunnabridge Pound

Map - Dunnabridge Farm

Map - Crockern Tor

Judges' Chair - By Richard Knights (From geograph.org.uk) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Jolly Lane Cot, Hexworthy

  © Copyright Derek Harper and
licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
I think this is an image of Jolly Lane Cot!

"Just above the bridge is Jolly Lane Cot, built in one day, and the last holding attempted to be taken from the Duchy, an old custom being that if a house could be built and inhabitted between sunrise and sunset the builder could claim it as his.  An account of this will be found in Dartmmor Idylls , and also in A Hundred Years on Dartmoor."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Jolly Lane Cot

[I have heard of a similler custom in Wales where they are called "Ty Un Nos", or overnight houses.  If you could build the chimney after sunset and get is smoking before sunrise, you could live in the house you built around it.  As far as you could throw an axe from the front door was the size of your garden...]

The Coffin Stone above Dartmeet

"So we may as well turn off the road as we descend, and look on the left-hand side for a grassy track whereon stands the Coffin Stone, used for generations as a resting-place when a funeral is on its way from parts of the forest to Widecombe. A sense of reverence creeps upon us as we look at the block, cut with rude crosses. Around us is scenery the grandest that can be conceived. It should bring consolation with it, for surely those who come here with their dead must have a sense of the nearness of God."

Cresswell 1921

Map - The Coffin Stone

Poundsgate and the Evil One

"It was here [Poundsgate] that the Evil One first came on the Sunday of that Widecombe storm, an occurrence altogether so unusual that perhaps the importance of Poundsgate dates from that hour."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Poundsgate

The Batch Loaves

"We now leave the Drives, with their beautiful woods, behind, and pass out to the commons, with Leigh Tor just above us - a couple of fantastic groups, some of the rocks being locally named the Batch Loaves."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Leigh Tor

Lovers' Leap

"The usual story is told of the Lovers' Leap in Buckland Wood, the crag overhanging the Dart below Awesewell Rock."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Lovers' Leap

At the Sign of the Cavalier

"When leaving the town[of Ashburton] by West Street a house at the turn of the hill may be observed, bearing a date of the seventeenth century, and with a little figure of a man on horseback at the edge of the roof.  There are several such in Devon, and the figure is no child's toy, but in the troublous times of the Civil War this unpretentious little man, noticeable only if you were looking out for him, denoted that here only persons of Royalist sympathies would be welcomed.*

*For notes on these "ridge tiles" see The Western Antiquary  vol. I, page 115 et passim."

Cresswell 1921


Map - Ashburton

The Wicked Weaver of Dean Prior

"But first we must find the Hound's Pool, where a vicar of Dean Prior transformed the spirit of a wicked weaver, who had been a trouble to the village, into a black dog, and set him to bale out the pool with a nut-shell.  The story makes us think of Binjie in Cranmere, and Tregeagle, who, over the Cornish border, is emptying Dosmary Pool with a limpet-shell."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Hound's Pool
Map - Dean Prior
Map - Cranmere Pool
Map - Dosmary Pool

Abbots' Way, or Jobbers' Path

"Petre's Cross is near to the Abbots' Way, or Jobbers' Path, as it is sometimes called, the track from Buckfast to Buckland and Tavistock Abbeys, now only a green path. The wool trade, which still prospers at Buckfastleigh, was formerly carried on by the monks of Buckfast, and it has been conjectured that over Jobber's Path bales of their merchandise were conveyed."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Petre's Cross
Map - Buckfast Abbey
Map - Buckland Abbey
Map - Tavistock Abbey ruins

Ugborough and the Bishop of Worcester

"There are two good brasses of the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries in this church [Harford Church].  The former is a knight in armour, Thomas Williams, Speaker of the house of Commons, the other a coloured brass to the Prideaux family, placed here by John Prideux, Bishop of Worcester, in 1639.

Of him it is told, that as a young man in Harford he competed for the post of parish clerk, in the neighboring parish of Ugborough, but failed to get the appointment. He went to Oxford, and worked in a menial position. Afterwards a patron kindly procured for him admittance to a college, where through his ability he rose from one position to another until he was made bishop of Worcester; and was wont to remark "If I could have been a parish clerk of Ugborough, I had never been the bishop of Worcester."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Harfod Church
Map - Ugborough

Roman's Cross and Saint Rumon

"From Shaugh we can walk across the moor towards the east, making for Roman's Cross and passing the so-called Roman camp on our way.

Roman's Cross was so called by the monks of Tavistock, from St. Rumon to whom the abbey was dedicated, and whose name also survives in Romansleigh in North Devon, a manor to the abbey."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Roman's Cross
Map - Tavistock
Map - Romansleigh

Dewerstone and Carrington the poet

"Down in the valley, overhanging the river, is the well known and fantastic crag, the Dewerstone.  It was a favourite haunt of Carrington, the Dartmoor poet. His name with the date of his death is cut on a rock above the crag."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Dewerstone

Meavy Cross and Oak

"Just such another old world village is Meavy, where beneath a shattered tree stands the old village cross, now restored, the children playing on the steps, just as Mrs. Bray describes them playing when the cross was a broken shaft."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Meavy

[I have included this piece solely because old venerated trees on Dartmoor fascinate me, and any mention of them I think deserves noting!]

Marchants Cross

"In a mile and a half from Sheepstor village we may reach the river Mew at Marchants Bridge, near to which is a cross of the same name. Tradition tells how the traveler used to stop and prey for his safe journey at this cross before setting out over the moor, wild enough in these days of cultivation, but how much more so when that slender symbol was erected, when road and hamlet were alike unknown, and the wolf, it may be, still lingered among the mires and mountains."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Marchants Cross

Childe the Hunter

Childe's Tomb, from Wikipedia thanks to Herbythyme, under a Creative Commons license.

"Down the valley to the east [of Nun's Cross], is White Works, a hamlet from which perhaps the most romantic of all the Dartmoor memorials may be reached: Childe, the Hunter's Tomb. It lies exactly under Fox Tor, the mire of that name occupying the basin between White Works and the tomb, which is visible from between the houses to those who know it. But the impassable bog makes a straight line impossible ; to reach it we must keep close to the wall on the north and cross the stream at the lower end of the mire. Then by skirting the higher ground we can get at the tomb, which consists of several stones, surmounted by a cross, but is not the original structure; and here we stand upon the scene of one of the most picturesque stories of the moor, the legend of Childe the Hunter.

Mr Baring Gould preserves among Songs of the West the Dartmoor ballad that tells the story :-

It so befell, as I've heard tell,

There came the hunter Childe;

All day he chased on heath and waste,

On Dart-a-moor so wild.

Cold blew the blast, the snow fell fast,

And darker grew the night ;

He wandered high, he wandered low,

And nowhere saw a light.

His knife he drew, his horse he slew

As on the ground it lay:

He cut full deep, therein to creep

And tarry till the day.

The wind did blow, fast fell the snow,

And darker grew the night;

Then well he wot, he hope might not 

Again to see the light.

So with his finger dipped in blood.

He scribbled on the stone-

One is grateful to the ballad for telling us on what substance Child wrote that last will and testament, found when teh snow had melted beside his dead body:-

They fyrste that fyndes and brings mee to my grave,

My landes of Plimstoke they shall have.

In due course of time the discovery of the body and the writing was reported, when it occurred to the monks of Tavistock that the very best persons to be the heirs of Childe were themselves, to the advantage of the abbey. So they started for Fox Tor to fetch the body. Meanwhile the men of Plymstock determined to have the honour of burying Childe and inheriting the property themselves.  But they allowed the monks to have the arduous task of getting to Fox Tor and bringing the corpse over the moor. A number of them waited at the bridge over the Tavy, with the intention of stirring up a fight and carrying off the body before it reached Tavistock Abbey. But the monks suspected assault, and tricked them in a truly monkish manner, throwing a light bridge over the river at another point, by which they quietly carried the hunter's body to the abbey, while the Plymstock worthies waited elsewhere. Childe the hunter was buried with due honours, and the abbey inherited the property. The bridge remained, and was called Guile Bridge.

The learned have rejected this legend, but we would rather let it rest, as it adds to the weird picturesqueness of this part of the moor. The vandalism of the farmer has unfortunately destroyed the original monument, which was spoken of in Risdon's time as one of the three remarkable things about the forest. Crossing has given, in his Ancient Crosse, and also in an article dealing with the subject in his series of papers on the Folk-Rhymes of Devon , a full account of its destruction, and of the subsequent discovery by him of its site and various parts.

After crossing the moor to see Childe's Tomb, one is impressed with the feeling that whoever found his body and brought it back for burial merited the reward."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Childe's Tomb
Map - Plymstock
Map - Tavistock
[The location of Guile Bridge appears to have been lost.]

Pixies Cave above Sheepstor

"Just above the village [of Sheepstor] is a bold massive tor that gives the place its name, a grand rocky hill which makes a landmark for a long distance. On the side, but difficult to find, is Pixies Cave, in which, tradition says, John Elford the Cavalier hid during the Civil War."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Sheepstor

Crazy Well or Classenwell Pool

"Let us also make our way to Crazy Well (or Classenwell) Pool, which is not more than about two miles from Princetown. We take the Plymouth road for a short distance,and strike off across the turf for Harter Tor, passing through the remains of a considerable hut settlement on the way.  Ascending Harter Tor, bellow us on the west is one of Dartmoor's new lakes, Burrator Reservoir, lying in the distant valley like a blue gem in malachite.

The tower of Princetown Church will aid us considerably in our walk to Crazy Well Pool, as a direct line may be made from the church to Harter Tor, thence to Cramber Tor, and strieght to our destination.

Between Cramber Tor and the pool runs the Devonport leat; by keeping a little way to the left a bridge over the leat will be found, then continue the line - and - don't fall into Crazy Well Pool when you get there! It seems to lie at one's feet, at the bottom of a sheer bank which we must skirt to get at the water. It is most indisputably one of those moorland spots that you don't see until you get there. It is said to be bottomless, until a very dry summer dispelled the illusion, and the further fancy that it ebbs and flows is pretty rather than true."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Crazy Well Pool

Princetown Prison

"A very brief acquaintance with Dartmoor Prison and the neighborhood removes all romance that may hang round the prisoner and captive, and when from time to time one escapes nobody is sorry when he is again caught - which invariably happens. He steals from the hamlets, and is discovered with stolen goods in his possession; one got as far as Plymouth, where a dog so alarmed his tender conscience that he began to run, so that the police, surprised to see a man running for nothing, suspected something amiss. Another left his boots in the back kitchen of a house near Chagford; he did not go away barefooted, and the authorities afterwords identified the "borrowed" pair."

Cresswell 1921

[N.B. Not sure weather to include this one - not really folklore yet, but stories of prison escapees are still passed orally today almost like folk tales]

Map - Princetown

Map - Plymouth
Map - Chagford

Stannary Parliament at Crocken Tor

"In his Survey of Devon Risdon describes as one of the remarkable objects of the moor "a high rock called Crockern Tor, where the parliament for Stannary causes is kept, where is a table and seats of moorstone, hewn out of the rocks, lying in the force of all weather, no house or refuge being near it." We shall see a good many newtakes, as the enclosed land is called, when we leave the hotel and prepare to ascend Crockern Tor, which is no great distance behind it.  The parliament on Crockern Tor lasted till very late, it being finally the custom to assemble there, swear in the jurors, and then adjourn to one of the Stannary towns, where debates and business would be less liable to interruptions from the weather. The climb up the rock is not difficult."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Crockern Tor