The Parson and Clerk rocks of Dawlish

"On the south-east coast of Devon, about twelve miles from Exeter, lies the picturesque town of Dawlish. It possesses a long stretch of sandy beach, which encloses a small bay of the English Channel. At the southern extremity may be seen two rocks, lying a short distance from the mainland, known as the Parson and Clerk. The story of these rocks, as told by the gossips of Dawlish is as follows :
 

A certain bishop of Exeter fell sick, and thinking that the pure air of this charming village would restore his lost energy took up for a time his residence there.

An ambitious priest, whose aim was to succeed to the See in the event of his superior's demise, frequently rode to Dawlish accompanied by his clerk to make enquiries after the condition of the dying bishop. The clerk was usually the priest's guide; but one night, in a tremendous storm, while crossing Haldon they lost their way, and worn out with the long journey found themselves miles out of the beaten track, The priest boiled over with rage. He abused the clerk, and exclaimed " I would rather have the Devil himself, than you, for a guide." At this moment a horseman rode by and volunteered to pioneer them to Dawlish. They thanked him and jogged comfortably along at his side, unmindful of time, distance, or invalid. The storm still raged and the long ride had sharpened their appetites, therefore, as they approached a brilliantly-lighted mansion, they gladly accepted the stranger's invitation to partake of his hospitality. They enjoyed a sumptuous repast, and indulged freely in the good wine provided so lavishly by their host.

In the midst of their merriment news was brought that the bishop was dead. The priest was eager to be off to secure the first chance of promotion, now that the bishop was out of the way. So master and man mounted their steeds and made ready to depart. But the horses were not anxious to go. They were whipped and spurred but all in vain. "Devil take the brutes," exclaimed the priest in his rage. "Thank you, sir," said their host, "Gee up." The horses did "gee up ! "with a vengeance, and galloped madly for the cliffs : then over they went, that of the clerk first, then followed the parson and his steed plump on their backs and there they are to this day looking see-ward (sea), monuments of disappointed ambition."

Hewett 1900

 

Hewett's Haloween - Part 8 - Blind-mans prophosy

Not really this ceremony - but an approximation... - Blind Mans Bluff Game - 1751 - Jean-Honoré Fragonard

"Heedless of this affectionate raillery, everything drifted along smoothly, and four dishes of water were brought in and placed severally in three corners of the room, and the fourth, emptied of its contents, was placed in the fourth corner. Then four blind-folded operators were led into the room and placed back to back in its centre, the lights having been previously extinguished. Then all four fell on their knees and each crept at discretion to any, or all to the same, corner.
 

The empty dish portended celibacy or poverty. The dish of clean water, that the future one would never before have married. The dish of dirty water, that the future spouse would be a widow or widower. The dish of water with pebbles at the bottom, riches and honour."

Hewett 1900

Map - Haldon Hills 

The Armed Knight

Tal-y-Maen or Longships - By Olaf Tausch (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-3.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"At low water there is to be seen off the Land's End a ridge of dangerous rocks [Tal-y-Maen or Longships], against which the Atlantic, the English, and St. George's Channels beat in fury. One of these rocks is still called the Armed Knight, because it once had on its summit an iron spike, which was thrown down in a tempest in 1647, and the rock was broken by it into three pieces. No one could explain how the spike came to be placed on such a spot."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Tal-y-Maen

Dr Johnsons Head

Dr. Johnson - The Illustrated Magazine of Art Vol.1, No. 1 (ca. 1853)

"There is a curious lump of cliff here [Land's End], named Dr. Johnson's Head, which really does resemble in some degree the profile of the London sage."

Valentine (Undated)

Map - Land's End

Saint Levan's Stone and prophosy

Saint Levan's Stone and an ancient cross - By Jim Champion (originally posted to Flickr as St Levan churchyard) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

"On the south side of the church, to the east of the porch, is a rock broken in two, the fissure being full of ferns and wild flowers that grow in it, while tall grass encompasses it. On this rock St. Levan was wont to sit and read and meditate, or listen to the far-off moan of the sea.

He appears to have had a giant's strength, for one day he gave the stone a blow with his fist and split it in two; then, bending over it, he uttered this prophecy:-

"When with panniers astride,
A packhorse can ride
Through St. Levan's Stone,
The world will be done."

The fissure does not seem to have opened much since the saint's day. There is therefore no immediate chance of his prophecy being fulfilled."

Valentine (undated) 

Map - Saint Levan's Stone

The Pixies and the church at Lynton

Sorry - not a very pixie like faerie - Daisy By Kelly Thompson
 • Copyright: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Public Domain License.

"Lynton Church is situate in the centre of the village. There is a tradition about it very much resembling that of Hollington Church, near St. Leonards. It is said that it was intended to be built opposite Cherrybridge, on the Barnstaple road, but while the workmen brought materials or worked by day, the Pixies - the Devonshire fairies - carried the stones away by night, till the builders grew weary of their fruitless labour and erected it on the spot chosen by the Brownies."

Valentine (Undated)

Map - Lynton Church
Map - Cherrybridge

[Saint Leonard's is not in the Westcountry - the myth appears to be about the devil, rather than pixies!]

The Scold's Stone

Dittisham from the Dart

"Just abreast of Greenway is a rock that rises from the bed of the river, and it is under water at high tide. As a vessel once struck on it, an iron beacon has been placed on it to show the danger when it is covered. It was formerly called the "Scold's stone,"a scolding wife being placed on it as a punishment by the men of Dittisham. She must have been in considerable peril at high water, unless released before the tide flowed."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Scold's Stone

The grave of Arthur and Guinever - part 1

Arthur Rackham (1917). "How Mordred was Slain by Arthur, and How by Him Arthur was Hurt to the Death". - Public Domain, from The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table Alfred W. Pollard. New York: The Macmillan Company.

"King Arthur, wounded in one of his battles, was taken to Glastonbury to be cured of his wounds by these healing waters. And after his last fatal battle, that of Camlan in Cornwall, in which he fell, he was conveyed by sea to Glastonbury to be buried. In course of time the spot where he slept was forgotten; but a Welsh bard singing to Henry II., as he passed through Wales on his way to Ireland, of the great British king, declared that Arthur slept between two pyramids at Glastonbury. When the king returned to England he told the abbot what the bard had sung, and search was at once made for the grave. One of our chroniclers, Giraldus Cambrensis, was an eye-witness of what ensued, and has recorded it.

Digging down seven feet below the surface, a huge broad stone was found with a small thin plate of lead in the form of a cross, bearing in rude letters the Latin inscription: "Hic jacet sepultus Inclytus Rex Arturius in Insula Avalonia." Nine feet deeper they found the trunk of a large tree hollowed out for a coffin, in which lay Arthur, and by his side Guinever..."  [cont..]

Valentine (undated)

Netley Abbey

"On the turf in the church lie many fragments of the old roof, which bear mute testimony to an accident, of which a strange account has been preserved in the locality. The Abbey roof was entire up to 1704, when Sir Bartlet Lucy possessed the Abbey, With singular want of feeling or sentiment, the Earl of Huntingdown, its next possessor, actually sold the materials of the church to a builder. The following strange story is told of this purchase by Browne Walters, the antiquary:-

"The earl, it is said, made a contract with a Mr. Walter Taylor, a builder of Southampton, for the complete demolition of the Abbey; it being intended by Taylor to employ the materials in erecting a town house at Newport and other buildings. After making this agreement, however, Taylor dreamed that, as he was pulling down a particular window, one of the stones forming the arch fell upon him, and killed him. His dream impressed him so forcibly that he mentioned the circumstance to a friend, who is said to have been the father of the well-known Dr. Isaac Watts, and in some perplexity asked his advice. His friend thought it would be the safest course for him to have nothing to do with the affair, respecting which he had been so alarmingly forewarned, and endeavoured to persuade him to desist from his intention. Taylor, however, at last decided upon paying no attention to his dream, and accordingly began his operations for the pulling down of the building; in which he had not proceeded far, when, as he was assisting at the work, the arch of one of the windows, but not the one he had dreamed of (which was the east window still standing), fell upon his head and fractured his skull. It was thought at first that the wound would not prove mortal; but it was aggravated through the unskilfulness of the surgeon, and the man died."

The accident that befell Taylor was thought to have been a judgment of Heaven on him, and the Abbey was thus saved from demolition.

This story is told in the "History of Mitred Abbeys," and is quite intelligible. The instinctive reverence of the builder, struggling with his greed, undoubtedly caused his dreams, aided perhaps by his knowledge that the task of taking down the Abbey church must necessarily be a dangerous one. Happily, however, the walls still in great part remain, probably no one caring to take the risk of their removal."

Valentine (undated)

Map - Netley Abbey

[I am unsure as to where to start the westcounrty - my instinct is it starts roughly on a line between Poole and Bath or Bristol. This entry, then, is a little generous, but so be it.]

Dozmare Pool - part 2

Dozmary Pool -   © Copyright Steve G and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

"...Occasionally, too, it is said this miserable monster is hunted by the devil round and about the tarn, when he flies to the Roche Rocks, some 15 miles distant, and, by thrusting his head in at the chapel window, finds a respite from his torments. Other versions of the legend place Tregeagle on the coast near Padstow, where he is condemned to make trusses of sand and ropes of sand to bind them; or at the mouth of the estuary at Helston, across which he was condemned to carry sacks of sand until the beach should be clean of the rocks. 

The story of Tregeagle, however, with his endless labour, has been connected in Cornwall with a real person, the dishonest steward of Lord Robartes at Lanhydrock (where a room in the house is still called Tregeagle's), who maltreated the tenants under his charge, and amassed money sufficient to purchase the estate of Trevorder, in St. Breock, where he distinguished himself as a harsh and arbitrary magistrate."

Hope 1893


Map - Dozmary Pool
Map - Padstow
Map - Helston Estuary
Map - Lanhydrock
Map - Saint Breock

Saint Cleer, Liskeard

"The well of St. Cleer, the baptistery or chapel by which it was enclosed, and an ancient cross about 9 feet high, form a group by the roadside 100 yards eastward below the church, north of Liskeard. The chapel was destroyed by fanatics in the Civil War, but appears to have been similar in size and construction to that which now stands by Dupath Well, near Callington. It was restored in 1864 as a memorial to the Rev. John Jope, sixty-seven years Vicar of St. Cleer. The well is said to have been once used as a boussening or ducking pool, for the cure of mad people. Attempts have from time to time been made to cart away some of the stones of the chapel, but mysterious power has always returned them at night. The entrance is under two low round arches, the roof covered with ivy and brushwood. The water flowing out of the well fills a pool or basin, supposed to have been used as a boussening pool for curing mad people. St. Clare was born about 1200, in Italy, and died 1252. She became the abbess of a monastery of Benedictine nuns, and was foundress of the order of the Poor Clares.--E. Ashworth, Esq."

Hope 1893

Map - St Cleer's Well
Map - Dupath Well

Whiddon Park Logging Stone

"Creator:	Froude, Robert Hurrell
Title:	Logging stone under Whiddon Park
Imprint:	: Pen and wash
Date:	[1820?]
Format:	Drawing ; 108x181mm
Ref. no.:	P&D09008
Notes:	Title on verso. Purchased from J.Willis Price, 1937
Copies:	WSL: SD
Coverage:	Devon . Chagford . Rock formations . Whiddon Park . Illustrations . 1820
Last Updated:	03/08/2005"

from  The Westcountry Studies Library - http://www.devon.gov.uk/localstudies/110837/63.html&s=frYiKkEh5rR

Pelynt - Saint Nun's Well - part 1

"On the western side of the beautiful valley through which flows the Trelawny River, and near Hobb's Park, in the parish of Pelynt, Cornwall, is St. Nunn's or St. Ninnie's Well. Its position was, until very lately, to be discovered by the oak and bramble which grew upon its roof. It is entered by a doorway with a stone lintel, and overshadowed by an oak. The front of the well is of a pointed form, and has a rude entrance about 4 feet high, and is spanned above by a single flat stone, which leads into a grotto, with an arched roof. The walls on the interior are draped with the luxuriant fronds of spleen-wort, hart's tongue, and a rich undercovering of liverwort. At the farther end of the floor is a round granite basin with a deeply moulded rim, and ornamented with a series of rings, each enclosing a cross or a ball. The water weeps into it from an opening at the back, and escapes again by a hole in the bottom. This interesting piece of antiquity has been protected by a tradition which we could almost wish to attach to some of our cromlechs and circles in danger of spoliation. 

An old farmer (so runs the legend) once set his eyes upon the granite basin and coveted it, for it was no wrong in his eyes to convert the holy font to the base uses of a Pigsty and accordingly he drove his oxen and wain to the gateway above for the purpose of removing it. Taking his beasts to the entrance of the well, he essayed to drag the trough from its ancient bed. For a long time it resisted the efforts of the oxen, but at length they succeeded in starting it, and dragged it slowly up the hillside to where the wain was standing. Here, however, it burst away from the chains which held it, and, rolling back again to the well, made a sharp turn and regained its old positions, where it has remained ever since. Nor will anyone again attempt its removal, seeing that the farmer, who was previously well-to-do in the world, never prospered from that day forward. Some people say, indeed, that retribution overtook him on the spot, the oxen falling dead, and the owner being struck lame and speechless..." [cont.]

Hope 1893

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

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

Mrs and Mr Bray, and Rev. Samuel Rowe - part two

"...Mr. Bray's father had a summer-house at Beardown, on the Cowsic.  Hither they frequently came to make further excursions on the moor, searching for antiquities, and for what they dearly loved; traces of the Druids. Everything, in their opinion and in Mr. Rowe's was druidical: the stones; the rock basins; the names of the hills. No place was too inaccessible, no rock too hard, for the handling of this marvelous priesthood. And, as the druidical bards had left no written traces, Mr. Bray determined to put inscriptions upon the rocks at Beardown, which he conjectured to signify The Hill Of The Bards, though a moor simple derivation might be suggested.

These inscriptions, some of which were written in bardic characters, were traced by him upon the granite, and picked out by a labourer. Time, weather, and mosses, soon effaced many of the letters and in a few years some of the lines were indecipherable by Mr. Bray himself. From some cause the granite on this side is far more friable than that in the eastern quarter, which partly accounts for the rock basins and other druidical relics discovered by Mr. and Mrs. Bray."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Beardown

Druids and the Devil at Mis Tor

"Pursuing our way upwards [from Fitz's Well], we may climb to the top of Great Mis Tor, though the hill is long. Druidical origin has been claimed for the great rock basin at the top, which is perfect and even appears to have a channel for letting off water. The moormen, however, will tell you that Mis Tor Pan is sometimes called the Devil's Frying-pan."

Cresswell 1921

Giants at Tavy Cleave?

"We will not quit the neighborhood of Lydford without striking across the downs and visiting Tavy Cleave, a play-place of giants, with rocks in every possible fantastic form."

Cresswell 1921

Kestor and the spurious Druids again!

 

 

"Leaving Fernworthey for another day, we return to Chagford, past Castor, stepping aside to climb it and to examine the great rock basin on the top: the latter is eight feet across, and two deep, and is so often willed with water that it has a railing round it to prevent the sheep from falling in. It was discovered by the late Mr. G. W. Ormerod, who found it full of turf. What a delight it would have been to Mr. and Mrs. Bray with their Druidical tenets. It is the largest rock basin on the moor, and would have held sufficient water for the lustrations of a whole college of Druids."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Kestor

The Tolman Stone near Scorhill Circle

"Just bellow the confluence and on the left bank of the Teign, is the Tolman - a large water-worn rock with a hole in it, through which the active can squeeze themselves, though the attempt threatens a drop into water.  It is easier for a man than a woman [!] ; but the moor folk say you ought to get through the hole for good luck."

Cresswell 1921

Map - Tolman Stone