Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/407

 42 The Ancient Stone Crosses Henry I. bestowed the barony of Plympton, and also created him Earl of Devon, and it was long the seat of the family. Baldwin, the second earl, took up arms against Stephen, and while defending the city of Exeter, it is stated that those who were holding Plympton Castle, surrendered to the king. Baldwin was banished, but afterwards returning, was re- instated. During the civil war Prince Maurice, while beseig"- ing the town of Plymouth, made the castle his headquarters. Little more than a portion of the keep, upon a mound, noir remains, but viewed from the entrance to the churchyard, it is a picturesque object, the huge fragments of massive wall being partially covered with ivy. The quaint old topographer Leland refers to it as " a faire large castelle and dungeon, whereof the waulles yet stonde, but the logginges within be decayed." On the castle mound some years since was found a bronze coin of Ferdinandus XL, Grand Duke of Etruria, whose son Cosmo III. landed at Plymouth, in April 1669, and made a tour of some months through England. A build- ing worthy of notice is the Grammar School, built in 1664, Elize Hele, of Fardle, having left a sum of money for its foundation. The father of the celebrated Sir Joshua Reynolds was master of the school, and his son received some portion of his education here. Here, too, some ninety years later, in the first decade of the nineteenth century, was educated the Rev. Samuel Rowe, the author of the Perambula- tion of Dartmoor^ a work involving a deal of research and evinc- ing the great love he bore for that ** wild and wondrous region.** Plympton House, a fine mansion of the time of Queen Anne, is now used as a private lunatic asylum. The guildhall is a quaint building with an old-time air about it ; its front projects over the pavement and is sup- ported upon arches. The old Maudlin House is frequently referred to in the parish registers, one of the entries being as follows : "1618 May 24 was buryed Charles Ffysher wch dyed within the pishe of Plympton Ercll in the house over right against the Maud ling house." Another entry sets forth that on the 20th May 1613, " Was buryed a walking woman wch dyed in a ffecid between Plimp- ton Marie and Cornwood." This event had a sad parallel in 1891, when a poor woman lost her life near Sparkwell, in the blizzard of March of that