Page:A book of the west; being an introduction to Devon and Cornwall.djvu/135

Rh in Devonshire after the Conquest, not one is recorded as holding any of the estates that later belonged to these families. The cross is of granite, and stands 10 feet 6 inches high. It is, unhappily, mutilated at the top.

At Nymet Rowland, near Crediton, the savages lived, to whom Mr. Greenwood drew attention. They were dispersed by becoming a prey to typhoid, when their hovel was torn down. The last of them, an old man, lived the rest of his life and died in the parish of Whitstone in a cask littered with straw, the cask chained to a post in an outhouse. I have given an account of them in my Old English Home.

At Lapford is a fine screen, and the carved benches are deserving of attention. Lapford was for long, too long, the place over which "Pass'n Radford" brooded as an evil genius. I have told several stories of him in my Old Country Life, under the name of Hannaford. He has been sketched in Mr. Blackmore's Maid of Sker beside Parson Froude, of Knowstone. The latter has been drawn without excessive exaggeration.

At Down S. Mary the screen has been admirably completed from a fragment by the village carpenter. There is a good screen at Bow.

A good walk through pretty scenery to Dowrish, an ancient mansion, and once dating from King John's reign, but modernised in suburban villa style. Though there is nothing remaining of interest in the house, the view thence, stretching across the richly wooded land of the new red sandstone to the heights of Dartmoor, will repay the walk. For