A Book of the West. Volume I Devon

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.

So with his finger dipp'd in blood,
He scrabbled on the stones:
"This is my will, God it fulfil,
And buried be my bones.
Whoe'er he be that findeth me,
And brings me to a grave,
The lands that now to me belong
In Plymstock he shall have."

The story goes on to say that while the men of Plymstock were preparing to transport the body thither, the monks of Tavistock whipped it off, threw a bridge of planks, since called Guile Bridge, over the Tavy, and interred the hunter in their cemetery, thereby obtaining possession of his lands.

END OF VOL I

notes

1

Introduction to O'Curry (E.), Manners and Customs of the Ancient Irish, 1873, I. xxiv.

2

The New Century Review, April, 1897.

3

See M. Drayton's Polyolbion on this.

4

Davidson, "The Saxon Conquest of Devonshire," in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1877.

5

"Antique and Modern Lace," in the Queen, 1874. The last chapter is devoted to Honiton Lace.

6

The Devon and Exeter Gazette, December 31st, 1885.

7

Quoted in "Some Seventeenth Century Topography," Western Morning News, May 9th, 1876.

8

Names of places, as Heavitree, Langtree, Plymtree, take the "tree" from the Welsh "tref," a farm or habitation. Heavitree is Tre-hafod, the summer farm.

9

In my Lives of the Saints, written in 1874, I accepted M. Barthélemy's view, that Virgilius held that there were underground folk, gnomes; but I do not hold this now, knowing more than I then did of the learning of the great Irish scholars, and of the voyages made by the Irish. The earliest gloss on the Senchus Mor says, "God formed the firmament around the earth; and the earth, in the form of a perfectly round ball, was fixed in the midst of the firmament." – I. p. 27.

10

Ffin– limit, gal– the level land, i. e. in comparison with the Dartmoor highlands.

11

The same in Loch Lomond and in Lake Leman, in the Lyme in Dorsetshire, and the Leam by Leamington.

12

Condensed from "The Exmoor Ponies," by "Druid," in The Sporting Magazine, October, 1860.

13

The ford gave its distinctive appellation to the river above it.

14

Observe the Goidelic for Cen for the Brythonic Pen. Kenwith is "The Head of the Wood."

15

Granville (R.), History of Bideford, n. d.

16

Grenvilles of Stowe, by "A Bidefordian."

17

Forgotten Worthies.

18

Ashworth: "The Ancient Manor House of Wear Gifford," in Trans. of the Exeter Diocesan Architect. Soc., vol. vi., 1852.

19