ii6 The AncufU Stone Crosses the initials of Tavistock and Okehampton, and showing the former town to be distant eight miles and the latter nine. Near at hand is the Castle Inn, immediately without the door of which, and forming part of the rough pavem^t, is a stone of a circular shape, having a hole in its centre. This gives it something of the appearance of the socket stone of a cross, but for many years it supported an object of a very different character — the sign-post of the inn. The stone is said to have been made for that purpose, but that it was originally a millstone seems not to be unlikely. In the churchyard is a massive granite cross, erected over the grave of the wife of Arthur Lock Radford, and near it is another memorial of the dead, of a kind seldom, or never, seen. It is however strikingly appropriate as perpetuating the memory of one who loved the moor. It is simply a large granite boulder with an inscription which tells us that he who rests beneath it is Daniel Radford. An alternative route from Mary Tavy to Lydford is offered by the main road across Black Down, which may be followed to the Lyd at Skits Bridge, just beyond which a lane leads to the village. By taking this route the visitor will pass a stone by the wayside which is worth a brief notice. It will be seen on the left of the road not long before the bridge is reached, and marks the seventh mile from Tavistock. Whether this was its original purpose it is difficult to say. It is a wide slab about five feet in height, and the sides have been cut away at the top and the bottom, leaving the middle portion projecting in the manner of the arms of a cross. The form is so unusual, the arms projecting only about two inches, and being over two feet in depth, that we should hesitate to pronounce it to be an ancient cross, but rather incline to think that it was fashioned as we now see it at the time it was set up to serve its present purpose. It is, however, equally true that its form is an unusal one for a milestone, and also that it stands in the very situation we should expect to find a cross. It is placed where an old track called the King Way, near the line of which the present highway here runs, diverges from the latter to cross the Lyd at a lower point than the modern bridge. The inscription on its face occupies several lines, and conveys the following information to the traveller : From Tavistock 7 mileSf Okehampton 8, Truro 57.
