Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/545

1 62 The Ancient Stone Crosses any other of the Dartmoor examples, inasmuch as it could never have been intended to be set up, for it is simply cut in relief on the surface of a large block of granite. It is six feet eight inches long, the breadth of the shaft being fifteen inches The bottom of the shaft seems to have been broken, as also does one of the arms, while the other is not very clearly cut. It stands out in relief about six inches from the surface of the rock on which it is carved. From its situation near the summit of a tor, this cross, as Mr. Spence Bate observes, was evidently not intended as a mark to any path, **as most of the moorland crosses un- doubtedly were." His opinion is that this symbol of the Christian faith was carved at a time when this sign was held to be all powerful in freeing horn evil those places where the mysterious rites of Pagan superstition had been observed, and that Rippon Tor may have been such a spot. Descending from the tor in a northerly direction to Hems- worthy Gate, which opens on the Chagford road, we shall find within a few yards of it, in a corner formed by newtake walls, an object which will have an interest for us. The late Mr. Robert Dymond, of Exeter, and Blackslade in the parish of Widecombe, having been kind enough to call my attention to the fact that in the perambulation of his manor of Dunstone, this corner^ which forms one of the boundary points, is named Stittleford's Cross, I made search on the spot for the purpose of ascertaining whether any traces of such an object were to be found there. I was unsuccessful in discovering a cross of the ordinary character, but found a stone fixed firmly in the ground, and forming part of the wall, bearing a small incised cross, with the letters R M immediately underneath it. The stone stands nearly three and a half feet above the ground, and is sixteen inches wide, the lines of the cross each being six inches, which also is the height of the letters. On communicating what I had observed to Mr. Dymond, he expressed his belief that the lettters were the initials of Rawlin Mallock, who more than a century ago, laid claims to the lordship of the manor. It is not unlikely that this stone was erected on the spot where an ancient cross once stood, but which had disappeared in all but the name at the time of the erection of the present