This caused a sharp dispute in 1870 and 1871. A man at Bristol got the Duchy to grant him 280 acres for enclosure, and he began enclosing. People said that this enclosure was on Chagford common. But the Duchy officials said that the Ordnance map was wrong, and the Tithe map was wrong, and all the old inhabitants were wrong, although they had beaten the bounds, since they were young, just where their elders used to beat them. It seemed that nobody outside the Duchy office knew where the boundaries were. Inquiry was made if these officials had received a revelation from above; and then they came to earth with a Perambulation made on 24 July 1240. But that was a well-known document, printed in several books on Devon, and certainly did not prove their case. Henry the Third granted Dartmoor to his brother the Earl of Cornwall on 10 October 1239, and the Earl had this Perambulation made next year. It is clear that Furnum Regis is King’s Oven at the end of Hurston Ridge, and there is no difficulty about the words next after that, “et inde linealiter usque ad Wallebrokeshede et sic in longum Wallebroke usque cadit in Dertam,” but there certainly is something wrong about the words that go before, “et sic in longum Wallebroke et inde linealiter usque ad Furnum Regis.” How could the boundary run along the Wallabrook before reaching King’s Oven, and afterwards run along the Wallabrook for the whole length of its course from its head to its confluence with the Dart? The officials said there were two Wallabrooks here, and the unknown Wallabrook was the same as Hurston Water. This was really the only basis for their claim. But the Perambulation says ‘Wester Wallebroke’ in speaking of another Wallabrook on the other side of the moor, and would presumably say ‘Norther Wallebroke’ here, or else say ‘Wallebroke’ and then ‘aliam Wallebroke’ just as it says ‘Dertam’ and then ‘aliam Dertam’ on coming to the other Dart. Moreover, the sentence is imperfect as it stands. In all other cases the Perambulation takes the boundary to some fixed point and thence, etc. Either ‘usque ad ...’ has dropped out between ‘Wallebroke’ and ‘et inde,’ or else ‘et sic in longum Wallebroke’ has been put in by mistake. Possibly the scrivener saw the words in the next sentence, and repeated them in the wrong place. My father joined in the dispute, as the enclosure was threatening our rights of common at Hurston. He looked up the evidence, and wrote a memorandum on it, ending (in red ink) with this--“The farmers will of course pull down the fences, and put the Duchy to the proof of its claims in a court of law.” And of course they pulled them down, and the Duchy dropped its claims. I did not see the demolition done, but have always heard it was an animated scene. Some twenty men went out to do it, and they took a cask of cider with them, to strengthen their conviction in the justice of their cause.