Devon (England) -- Social life and customs; Wreyland (England)
Prehistoric remains may often be an obstacle to agriculture when they
are in a field; and thousands of them must have been destroyed to make
way for the plough. They are common enough on Dartmoor and other open
land round here, and probably were just as common on the land that is
enclosed. There are the remains of a little hamlet of hut-circles, with
a rampart round it, on the open land in Lustleigh Cleave a mile from
here; and in a field at Plumleigh, also a mile from here, there were six
hut-circles in a group. When the granite boulders in the field were
being cleared away, four bronze palstaves were found under one boulder
and four under another, all standing up on end. (Two are now in Exeter
Museum; and I remember others on a mantelpiece at Plumleigh, but cannot
find out what became of them.) They were found in 1836; and the six
hut-circles were destroyed soon after, to complete the clearance of the
field. This is not an isolated case, but typical of what is always going
on.
There is only one cromlech left in Devon--the Spinsters’ Stone. It is on
a farm called Shilston, two miles from Drewsteignton, three from
Chagford and nine from here. It consists of a flattish piece of granite
about two feet thick and ten or twelve across, resting on three upright
pieces about six feet high; and altogether it looks rather like a
toadstool with three stems instead of one. In 1862 one of the uprights
slipped away and let the top slide off, but the owner of Shilston had it
set up again; and several people have set up menhirs that had fallen
down. In such cases there can be no mistake; but I should not like to
see a group of fallen stones set up by anyone who had a theory about
Prehistoric things.
There were two rocks in the sea near Dawlish called the Parson and the
Clerk; but the Parson perished in a gale. The sea had undermined him,
and a big wave threw him down. There was no setting him up again, and
the Dawlish people felt the want of him: so they ordained another rock
as Parson with another for his Clerk. And if you go to Dawlish and
inquire for the Parson and the Clerk, you will be directed to a couple
of big rocks that lean up against a cliff; and there are pictures of
these two imposters, not only on the post-cards but even in such books
as the _Devonshire_ volume of the _Cambridge County Geographies_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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