A Book of Dartmoor: Second EditionBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A Book of Dartmoor: Second Edition
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Dartmoor (England)
Otters are never speared in the
West."[22]
And now to return to Sheeps Tor and the picturesque village that
nestles under it.
The one building-stone is granite, grey and soft of tone. The village
is small, and consists of a few cottages about the open space before
the church.
This latter is of the usual moorland type, and in the Perpendicular
style. Observe above the porch the curious carved stone, formerly
forming part of a sun-dial, and dated 1640. It represents wheat growing
out of a skull, and bears the inscription--
"Mors janua vitæ."
This church has most unfortunately been vulgarised internally. It
once possessed not only a magnificent roodscreen, rich with gold and
colour, but also a fifteenth-century carved pulpit that matched with
the screen. The church was delivered over to a Tavistock builder to
make watertight, as cheaply as might be, and he succeeded triumphantly
in transforming what was once a treasury of art into a desolation. A
few poor fragments of the screen have been set up in the church by the
vicar, with an appeal to visitors to do something to obliterate the
infamy of its destruction by a restoration out of what little remains.
Most fortunately, working drawings were taken of the screen before its
destruction. I give not only a drawing to scale of a bay as it was,
but also of a bay as it should be if restored, for the vaulting had
disappeared before its final ruin and removal. Near the church stood
formerly the old vicarage, a mediæval dwelling, intact, with its oak,
nail-studded door and its panelled walls. This also has been destroyed.
[Illustration: PORTION OF SCREEN, SHEEPS TOR]
What of old times still remains is the bull-ring to the south-east of
the church. On the churchyard wall sat the principal parishioners, as
in a dress circle. Near by is S. Leonard's Well, but it possesses no
architectural interest.
In Burra Tor Wood is a pretty waterfall. Burra Tor was the residence
of Rajah Brooke when in England. It had been presented to him by the
Baroness Burdett Coutts and other admirers. In Sheeps Tor churchyard he
lies, but Burra Tor has been sold since his death.
Above the wood stands Roman's Cross, probably called after S. Rumon or
Ruan, whose body lay at Tavistock. There is another Rumon's Cross on
Lee Moor.
The drive from Douseland round Yennadon, above the dam and the
reservoir, to Sheeps Tor village, is hardly to be surpassed for beauty
anywhere on the moor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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