Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/373

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12
The Ancient Stone Crosses


height was five and a half feet, and across the arms it measured two feet seven inches.

But though there is no cross now in Brent itself, the moor belonging to the parish can furnish us with an example, and, for the purpose of examining this, and others on the boundary line of the forest, we shall leave the little town, and direct our steps to Three Barrows, a lofty hill rising high above the left bank of the Erme. Our way will first take us by the foot of Splatton Hill to Lydia or Leedy Bridge, a single arch spanning the Avon. Immediately above it is a fine waterfall, while below a stately row of beeches throw their branches partly over the stream, along the bank of which is a path leading by the vicarage lawn to the church. Passing up the hill, we reach the hamlet of Aish, at the higher end of which we turn into a lane on the left, and, still ascending, at length enter upon the common known as Aish Ridge.

From this elevated down Three Barrows can be plainly seen, and for some considerable distance we shall have the advantage of a moorland track which runs towards it. This path will brmg us to Brent Moor at Coryndon Ball Gate, soon after which we shall commence the ascent of the hill, where, on the slope near the summit, we shall find the shattered remains of one of the objects it is now our purpose to examine, lyin<:j amid the granite with which the ground is strewed. Three Barrows, which is about three and a half miles from Brent and some two miles to the northward of Harford Church, is crowned with three large cairns, whence its name, and during an exploration of one of them by Mr. Spence Bate» recorded in the fifth volume (1872) of the Transactions of the Devonshire Association^ part of a cross, consisting of one of the arms and the top of the shaft, was found near at hand. This he, with great probability, supposed to be a portion of one which he states was set up by a jury of survey, empanelled to settle some boands in this part of the moor about a century and a half before. He also considered that in it he saw all that remained of a cross which is mentioned on an old map of Dartmoor as Hobajon's Cross, and which is there represented as standing on two steps, and is situated nearly in the middle of a row of