Page:Devon & Cornwall Notes & Queries.djvu/90

 Devon Notes and Queries. 57 34. A Hitherto Undescribed Cross near Morbton- HAMPSTBAD. — Many of the old granite Crosses of Dartmoor and the Borders have either been wantonly destroyed, or converted into gateposts, stiles, etc. ; fortunately a few have been recovered and re-erected. Last summer I found one doing duty as a gatepost at Lynscott, about a mile from Moretonhampstead. How long it has been acting in that capacity no one knows. The gateway is in the comer of a field which is known as Cross Park, and adjoins the old road leading to the farm, formerly the main road from Moreton to Chagford, made in the days when road-makers were afraid of the swamps in the valley through which the modern road runs. An old trackway ran along by the side of the field, and after intersecting the old main road, joined a road leading to Cranbrook Castle and Fingle Bridge ; parts of this trackway can still be distinguished, and Mr. Charles Cuming, of Lynscott, thinks the Cross formerly stood at the point of intersection, and only a few yards from the place where it was found. When Mr. Cuming*s attention was called to this interesting relic of the past, he kindly consented to under- take its removal and re-erection, and it now stands on a bank amongst some trees almost opposite the gateway, where we hope it is safe from further mutilation. The cross is roughly shaped ; one arm is missing, knocked off presumably by the person who hung the gate, and the head has been badly damaged. It stands 5 feet high ; width, 17 inches ; thickness, 9^ inches just below the arm, and 11^ inches at the base. On the face at the level of the arm, which projects 3^ inches, is an incised cross 1 1 inches by 7. There are four or five slits in the middle line of the posterior surface of the cross, each about 6 inches in length ; they are rather too narrow to take the ends of cross bars, and as the lowest slit is within an inch or two of the bottom of the stone, which is buried nearly two feet below the surface of the ground, it is possible that an attempt had been made to split the Cross. In spite of its mutilated condition it is an interesting addition to the Crosses in the neighbourhood of Moreton- hampstead. William J. Stephens. 35. Coat of Battishill Impaling ? — (Vol. II, p. 25, par. 21). I am inclined to think that these coats have undergone