Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/517

 138 TJu Ancient Stone Crosses Leaving Chagford we make our way up the hill by the church to Week Down, where an interesting old cross will claim our attention. The climb is a long one, but we shall be well repaid on reaching the breezy height, by the beautiful view that it commands. The cross comes in sight some time before we reach it, and will be found to be a fine example. It stands within a few yards of the road, but not quite in its original situation, having been removed in 1867, as in consequence of the bank giving way, it was feared it would fall. Another reason there was for its careful preservation ; its removal had been contemplated in order to use it for a foot-bridge. That it was saved from such a fate, and that the parish of Chagford was not deprived of an interesting object of antiquity, is a matter for congratulation. It stood formerly on a little higher ground, although it is now nearly on the summit of the down, and can be plainly seen against the sky, as one approaches Chagford by the Moreton road. It was leaning out of the perpendicular before its removal, and was set up inclining at the same angle. It is six and a half feet high, measured down its centre, and the shaft under the arms is fourteen or fifteen inches wide. About midway down this increases to seventeen inches, but again narrows at the bottom. It has very short arms indeed, shorter even than those of the Sourton Cross, as they project barely an inch and a half. They are of unequal size, the southerly being ten inches deep and eleven thick, and the northerly nine inches square. They measure scarcely eighteen inches across, and spring off at a distance of five feet from the ground, on the side that the inclination of the cross causes to be the higher. On each face, in the centre, be- tween the arms, is an incised Maltese cross. That on the eastern has its limbs parallel to the shaft and arms of the cross on which it is graven, but the one on the western face has not. Here the Maltese cross is upright, and a line drawn through it would fall at some little distance from the foot of the old stone. This would seem to show that it was incised after the cross had fallen out of the perpendicular, and though the position of the other does not indicate this, it is probable they were both cut at the same time. The western one is eight and a half inches high, and an inch less than this across, and the eastern nine and a half inches each way. The modem