152 The Ancient Stone Crosses CHAPTER XV. Crosses on the Bovey River* Horse Pit Cross — An Old-time Village — North Bovey Cross — Cross at Hele — Tradition of a Chapel by the Stream — Disappearance of the Manaton Cross — Its Socket-stone — Cross at South Harton Gate — Cross Park — The Bishop's Stone — Inscribed Stone at Lustleigh — Crosses at Bovey Traccy — Cross at Sanduck. In the parishes of North Bovey, Lustleigh and Bovey Tracey, which are watered by a tributary of the Teign, from which the first and last of those places derive their names, are several crosses, and these will now claim our attention. Moretonhampstead will again become our starting-place, and we shall leave the town by the North Bovey road- About a mile from it we reach a point where this road is crossed by another, and shall here find an old stone cross standing a few feet from the hedge. An adjoining field is known as Horse Pit, and this name has been bestowed upon the venerable stone. It is barely three-and-a-half feet high, and it is possible that a portion of the bottom part of the shaft may be missing. Across the arms, which are one foot in depth, the measurement is twenty-two inches ; the shaft is nine inches thick, and a little more than this in width. On one face — which looks S.£. by S. — it has the letter N, and on the other the letter O, standing respectively for Newton and Okehampton. At the end of the arm pointing in the direction of Moretonhampstead, is an M, and in a similar position on the other, a B, showing the traveller the way to North Bovey. These letters are incised. The village of North Bovey, which we shall soon reach from Horse Pit Cross, presents a very charming picture, and one that impresses the visitor as being truly English in all its features. The houses are grouped around a grove of noble old oaks, and as we stand beneath their boughs and look about us we shall note with pleasure that among the usual accompaniments of a rural settlement, the village can boast of its ancient cross. It is true that for a time this was unkindly, or thoughtlessly, banished &om its proper place, and
