146 Tlie Ancient Storu Crosses It is six feet in height on one side, and nearly eight inches more than this on the other, the ground being there worn away, and the arms are one foot nine inches across. The girth of the shaft is much greater at the bottom than at its upper part ; above the arms it slightly tapers, as also do the arms themselves. On the west-north-west face, that which fronts the road, the modern letters W B are incised; these stand for " Warren Bounds," the cross forming one of the boundaries of Headland Warren, and similar letters will also be noticed on several other stones near by which define its limits. The cross is also a boundary mark of the parishes of North Bovey and Chagford, and of the land over which extend the rights belonging to Vitifer Mine.* A few loose stones will be observed near Bennet's Cross, being the marks of the tin-bounds, which are renewed once a year. These stones are then placed, as the country-people have it, '* brandis-wise ; " that is, in the form of a brandis, the name by which the triangular stands on which kettles are set on the hearth are called. Whether Bennet's Cross was originally erected to mark a boundary, or the path we are pursuing, cannot, of course, be determined. The probability is that it was designed for both purposes ; that a guide to the track being necessary it was decided to set up the cross in a situation where it would not only act as such, but define the parish boundaries at this point as well. In the vicinity of Bennet's Cross the ancient road from Chagford joined the one from Moreton, the former being marked near here by a monolith referred to in the records of the forest as Heath Stone. This is also shown as defining the road on a small map in a book published in 1720, being an improved edition by John Owen, of the Middle Temple, of a former work by Ogilby. In it our road across the forest is
- Nearly all the Dartmoor warrens are situated either in the neigh-
bourhood of Newhouse, or in the Plym valley. Huntingdon, which wc have already noticed, is one of the exceptions. In speaking of the bridge there (p. 19 ante) I inadvertentty stated that the warren was formed early in the eighteenth century. This should have been the nineteenth. The information I obtained about thirty years ago from Mr. Michelmore, a grandson of the first encloser, and who then resided there. It was taken in from the forest in 1808.
