96 The Ancient Stone Crosses Mire, goes by way of Aunfe, or Avon, Head to Holne, and is a shorter route to that place than the one we find marked out by the crosses. We leave the farmhouse on our left, and soon reach the eastern corner of the new take, where close beside the hedge we shall find a very perfect cross. I took the dimensions of it in the summer of 1878, when it was lying on the ground, in an opening in the wall of the enclosure. It is six feet in height, and two feet four inches across the arms. From the upper surface of these to the top of the shaft it measures nine inches. One of the top corners of the shaft is not square, but there is no appear- ance of a fracture, so that this want of uniformity seems to be owing to the natural shape of the stone. The corners of the shaft on one side are chamfered at a distance of one foot six inches from the bottom. The angles of this cross are not sharply cut, and it has a rather rude appearance. A few yards from it, fixed firmly in the ground with which its upper surCace was level, was the stone on which it had been set up, with a socket of sufficient size to receive the shafts and of a depth of five inches. On again visiting the spot in 1879, I was greatly pleased at finding this cross erect, but what was my regret when on passing it in May, 1881, 1 found it was once more prostrate.* For a few years it remained in this ignoble position, but in 1885 i^ ^^s s^^ uP) through the instrumentality of the Dart- moor Preservation Association, and in the good work I was privileged to assist. The shaft was fixed in the socket with cement, and there is no reason to suppose that it will again be displaced. Siward's Cross bears nearly due west from this cross, and a straight line from one to the other would pass almost close to Childe's Tomb. On the occasion of my visit to this spot in 1881, I found the opening in the wall of the new-take had been built up, and that the workmen in obtaining stones for the purpose had unearthed the remains of another cross, t This is the one I
- This cross was probably overturned by cattle. I know it to haTe
been upset more than once during the times of the forest drifts. j Fox Tor New take was one of the enclosures taken by Mr. Lambi who about that time commenced the folding of Scotch sheep on the moor. The wall, or rather hedge, of stone and turf, being rather dilapidated in places, then underwent complete repair. 9 t
