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Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/387

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24 The Ancient Stone Crosses is leaning toward the hedge, but only slightly; its southern face fronts the road. It is known by the name of Hookmoor Cross, and served the same purpose as the stone we have just been examining, for on it are four letters cut in relief in a precisely similar manner. These letters are M B T and P standing respectively for Modbury, Brent, Totnes, and Ply- mouth. The first is placed between the arms on the southern face ; the second occupies a like position on the northern face, now hidden, as it fronts the hedge ; the third is cut on the end of the eastern arm, and the last on the end of the western one. The cross is two and a half feet in height, and measures fifteen inches across the arms, which are about seven or eight inches deep, and project about four inches from the shaft. This is the height also that the head, which is tapering, rises above them. Below the arms the shaft is only worked for a few inches, the bottom part of the stone from which the cross is formed being left in its original condition. Had the letters been incised we might have imagined that they were placed on the cross at a period subsequent to its first erection, but cut as they are in relief, it is evident that this was done at the time it was made, and it therefore becomes certain that the primary object of those who set it up was to point the way to the traveller, the emblem of his faith at the same time reminding him of the path he must pursue if he would safely accomplish that longer journey which ends only at the grave- Pursuing the southern road for a short distance we shall come in sight of the village of Ugborough, and as we descend the hill leading to it we shall be struck with the very impos- ing appearance of its church, the noble sixteenth century tower rising to a height of nearly one hundred feet. The sacred edifice occupies a commanding position, upon rising ground on the southern side of a large open space, round which the houses of the village cluster, and is approached by a broad, semi-circular flight of granite steps. We have seen that the tower at Brent is much older than the church; the reverse is the case at Ugborough, for here the church is of some two hundred years earUer date than the tower. Few country parishes in Devon can boast of one so large, and the ecclesiastical antiquary will find much in it of interest. There are a great number of finely carved bosses in the roof of the north aisle, three of them towards the western