Of Dartmoor atid its Borderland. 149 on the same day at Post Bridge. This, he says, was near the bridge and close to the road. That it was the cross which Jonas Coaker remembered, there can be no doubt. Crossing the modern bridge, and noticing just below it the old clapper bridge, which is named in Owen's book, and which is the finest example of these structures now existing on the moor, we proceed for a few score yards on the road, when we shall observe a turning on our right, where a rough track, called Drift Lane, runs up by the side of the Dart. There are traces of an ancient path on the moor in a line with this road, and it is very probably a part of it. The latter is known as Cut Lane, and led from the valley of the Dart over the northern shoulder of Cut Hill, and the combe under Fur Tor to the north-eastern and northern borders of the moor. In 1260 Bishop Bronescombe, at the request of the in- habitants of the villages of Balbeny and Pushyll in the forest, permitted them to pay certain of their tithes to Widecombe, where they worshipped, their parish church of Lydford being at such a distance from them. That Cut Lane, as it is now oalled, was one of the paths used by the inhabitants of the villages named when it became necessary to visit their mother ohurch, there is no doubt. It is marked in places by stones, but there is no cross to be found upon it, though I have some reason for thinking that one did formerly point out its direction. Another track in this part of the moor is the Lich Path, referred to in Chapter xi., and said to have been used for the purpose of carrying the dead to the churchyard at Lydford for burial. It is plainly to be traced in many places, but throughout its course I have never been able to find a solitary cross, though, as in the case of Cut Lane, I have grounds for believing that one, at least, once existed upon it. Our road to the western precincts of the forest will next lead us to Two Bridges, where is now a county bridge span- ning the West Dart. Not far above it, on the Cowsic, is a clapper, and it is said that one also formerly existed on the Dart further down the stream. Near the western end of the bridge the road divides, one branch, as already stated, leading to Plymouth, the other to Tavistock. The old track to the latter town seems to have kept a little to the northward of the line of the present road, a ruined clapper on the Blackabrook, close to Fice's Well,
