io8 The Ancisnt SUnu Crosses CHAPTER XI. From the Tavy to the Taw« Tavistock*— Old Market Cross-- Hermitage of St. John — Inscribed Stones — A Period of Religious Activity — Tavistock Abbey — Remains of Cross at Peter Tavy — Steven's Grave— Longtimber Tor— Mary Tavy Clam- Mary Tavy Cross — Porstal Cross — Brent Tor — Lydford — Bra Tor^ Base at Sourton^-Cross on Sourton Down — ^An Ancient Inscription^ Cross formerly at Okehampton— North Lew Cross — Okehamptoa Park— Cross at Fitz's Well— Pixy-led Travellers— I nscril>ed Stones at Belstone and Sticklepath. There is much of interest to be seen in and around Tavistock, both from a picturesque and an antiquarian point of view, but one object it formerly possessed it now lacks — vandalism or carelessness has robbed it of its old market- cross. In relating some matters connected with the town, Mrs. Bray in her Tamar and Tavy has a passing reference to it. " William, the first Duke of Bedford,'* she says, " built a house for the schoolmaster, and gave him a < little herb- garden,' rent free. Adjoining the same, and then situated within the churchyard, was the school-house belonging to the town ; which John, Earl of Bedford, by his deed poll, dated the 6th of Edw. VI., granted for two hundred years with tolls and profits of three fairs, with a court of pypowder, and a weekly market on Fridays, as benefactions. Since which the town has built at its own cost a market-house, where the cross formerly stood.*' " All which profits and liberties," con- tinues Mrs. Bray, quoting from a survey and valuation of the site of the abbey of Tavistock, made in 1726, are within the borough of Tavistock, and for the use of the school-master."* Whether we are to gather from this that the town authorities removed the cross when about to build their market-house, or whether it had been destroyed earlier, is not quite clear, though the former seems the more probable. 1
- Tamarattd Tavy (1st. ed.) Vol. III., p. 166.
