Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/403

 38 The Ancient Statu Crosses cross, the term at length becoming a proper name. I also said that it had occurred to me that this may originally have been Rumon, one of the saints to whom the Abbey of Tavistock was dedicated, and that pilgrims jour- neying over this road to the abbey may have bestowed the saint's name upon the cross. When I wrote this I had never heard, or seen, such a derivation of the name suggested, nor was I by any means convinced of its correctness. I find it stated, however, in a paper read before the members of the Plymouth Institution in 1889, six years after my account of the cross first appeared, that " it has been suggested hy several^* not only that it derived its name from St, Rumon, but that it was once dedicated to him. I have not met with such suggestions in th^ pages of any writer, and I now believe the idea to be wrong. Since the first appearance of my account of this cross I have greatly extended my enquiries in its vicinity and have spent much time on and around Lee Moor. I have there found not only this cross, but others in the neighbourhood, referred to constantly as the Roman, or Romanes cross, mean- ing the Roman Catholic cross, and I am convinced that the suggestion which traces the origin of the name to this is correct and that it has nothing whatever to do with the saint. All the older people on that side of the moor speak of the cross as Blackaton Cross, and this is the name that will now be found on the latest Ordnance Map. It takes its name from a slight depression near by, where much peat has been cut, and which is known to the moor people as Blackaton Slaggets. Mention must not be omitted of another object in the neighbourhood bearing a name similar to that bestowed upon the cross. This is an excavation known as the Roman Camp, but which investigation has shown to be nothing of the kind. Mr. J. Brooking Rowe's idea that it was a reservoir for water nad is of comparatively modern construction, certainly com- mends itself as being highly probable. A tradition affirms that Blackaton Cross was erected to mark the spot where St. Paul once preached, and we shall probably not be sceptical regarding it when it is proved to our satisfaction that St Paul ever set foot in Britain. In the name of the stream which rises below Cholwich Town, the