A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and CornwallBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History
A book of the west. Volume 1, Devon : $b being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Devon (England)
The same station serves for the Awns and Dendles cascade, and for
a visit to the Stall Moor with its long stone row, also the more
than two-mile-long row, leading from the Staldon circle, and the
old blowing-houses on the Yealm at Yealm Steps. There the old
moulds for the tin lie among the ruins of two of these houses,
one above the steps, the other below. A further excursion may be
made into the Erme valley, with its numerous prehistoric remains,
and to the blowing-house at the junction of the Hook Lake. This is
comparatively late, as there is a wheel-pit.
North of Plymouth interesting excursions may be made to the
Dewerstone, perhaps the finest bit of rock scenery on Dartmoor, or
rather at its edge, where the so-called Plym bursts forth from its
moorland cradle. The summit of the Dewerstone has been fortified
by a double line of walls. A walk thence up the river will take a
visitor into some wild country. He will pass Legis Tor with its
hut circles in very fair preservation, Ditsworthy Warren, and at
Drizzlecombe, coming in from the north, he will see avenues of
stones and menhirs and the Giant's Grave, a large cairn, and a
well-preserved kistvaen. By the stream bed below is a blowing-house
with its tin moulds. Shavercombe stream comes down on the right, and
there may be found traces of the slate that overlay the granite,
much altered by heat. From Trowlesworthy Warren a wall, fallen,
extends, in connection with numerous hut circles, as far as the
Yealm. For what purpose it was erected, unless it were a tribal
boundary, it is impossible to discover.
A visitor to the Dewerstone should not fail to descend through the
wood to the Meavy river, and follow it down to Shaugh Bridge.
An interesting house is Old Newnham, the ancient seat of the Strode
family.
Hard by is Peacock Bridge. Here a fight took place, according to
tradition, between a Parker and a Strode, with their retainers,
relative to a peacock, and Strode had his thumb cut off in the fray.
Buckland Monachorum also is within reach, the church converted into
a mansion.
Meavy Church contains early and rude carving. Sheepstor stands above
an artificial lake, the reservoir that supplies Plymouth with water.
This occupies the site of an ancient lake, that had been filled with
rubble brought down by the torrents from the moor.
A delightful walk may be taken by branching from the Princetown
road to Nosworthy Bridge, passing under Leather Tor and following
Deancombe, then ascending Combshead Tor to an interesting group of
prehistoric remains, a cairn surrounded by a circle of stones, and
a stone row leading to a chambered cairn. By continuing the line
north-east Nun's or Siward's Cross will be reached in the midst of
utter desolation. Far away east is Childe's Tomb, a kistvaen.
The story is that Childe, a hunter, lost himself on the moor. Snow
came on, and he cut open his horse, and crept within the carcass to
keep himself warm. But even this did not avail.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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