Such buildings as have been erected at Princetown are ugly. The only structure that is not so is the "Plume of Feathers," erected by the French prisoners. Every other house is hideous, and most hideous of all are the rows of residences recently erected for the warders, for they are pretentious as well as ugly. Yet Princetown may serve as a centre for excursions, if the visitor can endure the intermittent rushes of the trippers on their "cherry-bangs," and the persistent presence of the convict. If he objects to these, he can find accommodation a couple of miles off, at Two Bridges; but if he desire creature comforts he is sure of good entertainment at Princetown. The group of remains at Merrivale Bridge is within an easy walk. These are the most famous on Dartmoor--not for their size or consequence, but because most accessible, being beside the road. But the whole collection is happily very complete. There is a menhir, a so-called sacred circle, stone rows, a kistvaen, a pound, hut circles, and a cairn. The menhir was the starting-point of a stone row that has been plundered for the construction of a wall. The sacred circle is composed of very small stones, and probably at one time inclosed a cairn. The stone rows that exist are fairly perfect. Those on the south, a double row, start from a cairn at the west end that has been almost destroyed, and end in blocking-stones to the east. They are, however, interrupted by a small cairn within a ring of stones, and, curiously enough, much as at Chagford, another row starts near it at a tangent from a partly destroyed cairn. The double row runs 849 feet. [Illustration: STAPLE TOR] The north pair of rows is imperfect; it probably had a cairn at the west end, but of it no traces now remain. It consists of a double row, and ends in a blocking-stone at the east end. It can be traced for only 590 feet. A fine kistvaen, formerly in a cairn, lies to the south of the southern pair of rows. A few years ago a stonecutter at Merrivale Bridge took a gatepost out of the coverer. In this kistvaen have been found, though previously rifled, a flint knife and a polishing stone. There were formerly two large cairns near, but both have been destroyed by the road-makers, as have also many of the hut circles; a good many, however, yet remain, and some are inclosed within a pound. In this ground is an apple-crusher, like an upper millstone, that has been cut, but never removed, because the demand for these stones ceased with the introduction of the screw-press. Some ardent but not experienced antiquaries have supposed it to be a cromlech! As such it is figured in Major Hamilton Smith's plan of the remains in 1828. The tor Over Tor, on the right-hand side of the road, was overthrown by some trippers--the first swallows of a coming flight--early in the century.