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Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/412

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Of Dartmoor and its Borderland.
47


cross near it, but one that we shall presently notice possesses a shaft that would have fitted this socket. As, however, the stone is over three-quarters of a mile distant, it may perhaps not be considered very probable, that it ever belonged to this base. We shall refer to this again when we come to examine it. A walk of about half a mile will bring us to Shaugh, immediately on entering which we shall see, close to the gate, of the new vicarage, and some short distance to the east of the church, a very good specimen of a cross. It stands in the hedge, being fixed in a socket-stone some three and a half feet wide, and eight or nine inches thick, and is somewhat out of the perpendicular. One of the arms is slightly fractured, but otherwise this old cross is in a very fair state of preservation. It is about five and a half feet high, the shaft having a width of one foot, but it is not quite square, being a little less than that in thick- ness. The arms measure two feet across, and are about ten inches deep. The corners have been chamfered, but owing to the wearing of the granite this is not immediately dis- cernible, except at the arms. This old cross is a pleasing object, its rude fashioning harmonizing well with its surroundings, where everything speaks to us of the moor. Here is the substantially built church, that has so long with- stood the fury of the blasts that often sweep down upon it from the rock-crowned hill behind ; and here the little cottages, reared near the rugged slope, with glimpses between them of grey rocks and patches of fern and gorse. In Shaugh Church, which dates back to the time of Henry VI., is a very beautiful font cover. This, it ap- pears, had been removed from the church while it was undergoing restoration in 1868 and 1869, and placed in a loft at a neighbouring farm. The Rev. Prebendary Bartholomew having called attention in 1878 to the fact of its existence, the Rev. J. 6. Strother, at that time vicar of the parish, made enquiries, and discovered it. It was in a damaged state, and has been most carefully restored. It is of oak, and between eight and nine feet in height, and octagonal in plan. The sides of the two lower stages are perpendicular, but the upper one is of a spiral form. It is surmounted by the figure of a mitred bishop.