Of Dartmoor and its BorderUmd. 105 writer were spent in this moorland parish. His boyhood was passed on that part of the North Devon coast made so familiar to the readers of Westward Ho ! From the village we direct our steps to Play Cross, in which place it is not improbable that we see the original site of the cross now in the churchyard. Descending Langaford Hill we shall proceed by the Buckfastleigh Road towards Hawso'n, and near the gate leading to the farm shall discover another object of interest. It is the upper portion of a large cross, built into a wall, and was placed there several years since, when the entrance to the farm, close to which it previously stood, was altered. One of the arms was broken off by the wheel of a waggon, but the fragment was fortunately preserved, and is now in its proper position* The cross is some forty or fifty yards from the gate, where I remember seeing it for several years, but it originally stood, I have been told, close to an old oak near the junction of roads hard by. It is now thirty-three inches high, the width of the shaft being nine and a half inches. The depth of the arms is greater than this, being ten and a half inches, and they measure thirty one inches across. The head rises eleven inches above them. Passing through pleasant lanes, and noticing on our left an eminence, clothed on one side with trees, and on the summit of which is the ancient hill-fort of Hembury Castle, we shall at the distance of about two miles and a half approach the spot where once stood the abbey of Buckfast. The date of its enlargement — 11 37 — has generally been given as that of its foundation, but this was much earlier. We know from Domesday that there was a religious house, having consider- able possessions, at a place named Bulfestra, and this place, Mr. J. Brooking Rowe says, there can be no question was Buckfast Abbey.'*' Within recent years new buildings have been erected upon the site of this ancient house, and again does the monk dwell by the waters of the Dart. A religious community, expelled from France, acquired the site of the abbey, and in 1882, the hymn of praise and the voice of
- There is therefore reason for bcJieving the Abbots* Way to be a very
ancient track indeed. Siward*s Cross, besides being a bond stone, may have marked the path even in the Confessor's time.
