72 TJie AncietU Stone Crosses There is a second ford over Red Lake just where it falls into the Erme, and not very far above Erme Pound, and it seems probable that at this point, or near it, another path joined the Abbots' Way. In our notice of Spurrell's Cross we briefly described the course of a track running from the in-country below the Eastern Beacon for some distance over the moor, and which we said could be traced to a wide hollow known as Stony Bottom. This, which is sometimes called the Blackwood Path, though perhaps used as a way to Erme Pound, it is likely was also traversed at times by travellers making for the Abbots' Way from the neighbourhood of Ugborough, and it would be near the point at which we have now arrived that they would strike it. After passing Red Lake the monks* track is lost for some distance, but that it ran near the left bank of the Erme is evident, for it is observable in two places a little further on, where it crossed Dry Lake and Dark Lake, tributaries of that river, and in each case the ford is close to where the waters unite. Near Dark Lake is the source of the Erme, and the infant stream can be seen trickling from the mire. The latter,. however, seems to be filling up ; at all events it has been in a very different state within our own recollection. But though its condition may formerly have been such as to present an obstacle to the traveller, it would appear that a means was found to overcome this. The road stops at the edge of it, but as it is to be seen on the rising ground beyond the mire, it is plain that the monks passed that way by riding through the bed of the little stream, where the bottom is hard, and this still affords the horseman a means of crossing. Not far to the north-west of Erme Head is Broad Rock, which was an important point on the Abbots' Way, for here the old path divided into two branches, one, and that the most used, leading to Buckland, the other to Tavistock.* The first is still a good hard track, and descends the hill to the Plym, which it crosses at Plym Steps, and shortly after becoming merged into a more modern road,t passes over the
- Broad Rock is a mass of granite about three feet in height, and with
rounded sides and a fairlv level surfstce with the letters B B — Broad Rock.. The initials stand for Blatchford Boundary, the rock making the limits of that manor. fThis road leads to Eylesbarrow Mine.
