Tavistock Abbey to Buckfast Abbey Monastic Path: Part 2 – Walkhampton Church to Siward’s Cross

Hemery’s ‘Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A guide to 28 routes’, Track 12. This section is from Walkhampton Church to Siward’s Cross. 5 miles

Background

This stretch of route from Walkhampton Church, though improved farmland, shrouding forest and then into unfurling moorland is to walk a path, not just rich in crosses, but the echos of them. The complexion of the ‘way’ itself is cast and recast: from the Saxon-suffused hollow-way leading from the Walkhampton church house; the wending agricultural lanes of the bursting medieval boom; and open moorland tinner’s tracks with traces of metalling and maintenance.

This historic route bisecting the moor has been variously termed a monastic way and the Jobbers or Jobbler’s Way (a jobber being a yarn trader). More recently Fleming (2011) posits its origins as an early medieval fast riding route for transiting the moor. These versions demonstrate that there is no single identity (Heritage Gateway^a). The quest for a simplistic label that can be attached is spurious because routes are rarely used by just one group of people for one purpose. And whilst ‘ways’ may have seen various dominant purposes at different periods in their history:

Trackways were not objectified inert ‘things’, but rather entangled assemblages where different materials, agencies, processes and practices met and were materialised.

Chadwick (2016)

Whilst accepting that this route may have had various histories, what is certain is that it is very well aligned with numerous medieval crosses. This indicates that, whilst the route may not have been instigated by monasteries or used exclusively by them, they did have more than a passing interest in this remote moorland course. Just along this section of the route between Walkhampton Church and Siward’s Cross there are seven extant crosses. That is quite a density. Some of these were fallen and have been re-erected. Some have been found dislocated, repurposed for agricultural utility, and reinstated at a suitable nearby wayside location, although not necessarily the one for which they were originally intended. Even so, this is still rich cross country.

In addition to the pointless quest to assign a simplistic purpose to the path, the other debate about such tracks is precisely which way did it go? From what I can see of the ‘big guns’, Hemery agrees with Worth but not Crossing. More recently Fleming (2011) has added his voice to discussions on its course, writing of its guise as quick Saxon horse route. For this blog, because I am following the route described by Hemery (1986) I am working with his route. In places I do get a bit involved with talking about the exact ‘way’ but it is not the intention of my blog to pick over the precise course taken in the past. When I blog about the next section of this ‘monastic way’ I am going to return to Fleming (2011) to discuss his rationale for this Dartmoor crossing, and the evidence he puts forward about its early origins and purpose before the rise of monasticism.

In the first part of this walk (Part 1 – Tavistock to Walkhampton Church) I wrote about how wayside crosses can serve various purposes in different locations (such as preaching crosses) but in the case of this route, apart from Siward’s Cross, they appear to be erected as route-markers. I also previously wrote a little bit about maps, or rather the lack of them, and wanted to return to this theme in the context of way-finding as, without a map …

The answer of course is partly in these way-markers crosses that tell the traveller that they are still on the right route. Before wayside crosses were erected, other stones were sometimes used as markers but descriptive narratives would have been vital. These ‘descriptio‘ by which the Medieval traveller would use landscape features to provide a descriptive sketch literally ‘told the way’ (Allen, 2013).

Wouldn’t it be fascinating to be able to hear the various descriptions used by the travellers who frequented this track over the years? Were they passed from one person to another as a consistent route manual? Were they embellished by personal experience such as ‘the place where I fell into the river’? What were the informal and formalised ways that this was done? For example, a child learning by tagging along with a parent, or a novice jobber or monk accompanying a more seasoned traveller to purposefully learn the route. How were they inducted? I wonder what things were noted as descriptors? What did they describe that we also see now? What did they see which no longer exists? And, did any of these things get passed down into the place-names we still use today? Judging from the names along this route then the answer to this is a clear yes.

Every journey is a path through actual topography but it is also a journey through a landscape on to which people have attached names – toponyms. Because I spend so much time looking at maps and the names on them, sometimes these break out from the page at me and spark my curiosity beyond their utility in cartographically defining different places. I am not a an expert in any of these matters but the whole joy of a blog is that you can explore ideas in a free way. I also appreciate that there is a difference between the informed speculation of experts and the uninformed guesswork of an over-enthusiastic amateur like myself. However, when it comes to the origins of names, whether expert or not, there is always a degree of errors and speculation given a) the way that names morph over the years, b) the range of phonetically appropriate options and c) the range of topographically appropriate possibilities.

And so, with route marking and route naming roiling in my head, I have chosen to get playful with exploring toponyms in my ‘interesting things’.

For Part 1 follow the link – Tavistock Abbey to Buckfast Abbey Monastic Path: Part 1 – Tavistock to Walkhampton

For Part 3 follow the link – Tavistock Abbey to Buckfast Abbey Monastic Path: Part 3 – Siward’s Cross to Horse Ford

7 Interesting Things

1. Lowery Cross

For the most part places with the word ‘cross’ in their name seem to be either crossroads or they are, or at least were, marked with a wayside cross. Given that Lowery Cross is not a crossroads and there is no indication that it ever was, I can only assume that there used to be a cross standing here. Crosses seem normal at junctions; were they placed so that the arms were practical pointers of the way? But if Lowery Cross had a cross, where is it now? In the case of Lowery Cross, the utilitarian re-purposing of a former cross is likely its fate. At nearby Welltown Farm the heritage record (Heritage Gateway^b, Heritage Gateway^c) show that two sections of cross shafts have been found built into agricultural buildings.

Just a little further along our route (700-800 m), at Lower Lowery farm there is a record of definite cross site. The cross is long gone but its socket stone was recorded as recently as the 1930s . Unfortunately this last vestige of its foundation footing had vanished by the 1950s (Heritage Gateway^d). Did both locations once have a cross or has the name of Lowery Cross been conflated with the location of the Lower Lowery Cross? Who knows!

Whilst it is true that wayside cross ‘parts’ have been re-cycled into farm structures, it is also probable that:

“most of the stone crosses were deliberately vandalised. The damage which some have sustained seems too severe to have been accidental. … Although some of the cross-shafts in due course may have become gate-posts, it is stretching credulity to suggest that utilitarian motives alone dictated their removal from these remote sites in a granite-rich area. It was surely nothing less than militant Protestantism which allowed the vandals to bring their sledge-hammers to bear on these monuments.”

Fleming, 2011

How many of the crosses along this and Dartmoor’s other monastic ways have been lost and will never be known? Those that stood near to settlements have often been re-homed as gates and in walls but in the remote inner moor it is likely that there are at least a fallen few, lying engulfed by the slow and incremental process of peat formation.

2. Cross Gate

Unlike the ghosts crosses we have just been talking about, the cross at Cross Gate, standing sentinel over Burrator, is alive. But it is lucky to be so. The socket stone is original, as is the cross head, which was found lying nearby at Vennylake Farm. In 1914 a new chamfered octagonal tapering shaft was fashioned for it and the circa 14th C cross head re-erected (Heritage Gateway^e).

Instead what feels missing here is not the cross but the gate! Have you noticed how many access points between enclosed land and the open common moorland have ‘gate’ in their name? We are not talking here about any old Tom, Dick or Harry farm gate. Named gates such as Cross Gate were clearly significant parts of the landscape. Indeed the word gate itself speaks of permitted access and control. These various gates ringing Dartmoor relate to the management of livestock, summer grazing, and the critical role that Dartmoor played in regional transhumance practices with cattle being brought up to the moor from the low and down lands (Langland’s, 2019; Fox, 2012). With the tarmacked road, the Devonport leat and its associated newer trackways, the morphology of this place as a moorland gate feels lost, remembered only through its name.

3. Leather Tor Farm and its name

The ruin of Leather Tor farmhouse looks much older than its actual Victorian years. Built in 1870 and replacing two medieval farms, it was abandoned not quite 100 years ago. The tenant, William Lillicrapp, was given notice by the Plymouth Corporation because of concerns about the impact of farming in the Burrator Reservoir catchment on the potability of its water (SW Lakes Trust). Now sheltered amongst trees, it requires a leap of imagination to picture this farm, along with the several other farmsteads in this afforested Meavy catchment, exposed to open vistas and opining winds.

The farm ruins (both Victorian and medieval) are interesting but what really piqued my interest was the name, taken from Leather Tor. Various people have speculated about its origin. Fox (2012) most recently enters into the discussion relaying a place-name expert’s view that it may relate to the celtic word ‘lether’ meaning a steep slope. This sounds highly plausible, but I am going to offer an alternative thought. According to the information board beside the ruined farmhouse the first record of a settlement here is from 1317 and refers to a place called ‘Lodertorre‘. Phonetically this is different from the modern ‘leather’ pronunciation. Consulting an Old Saxon dictionary the word lodr means ‘backbone, spine’. Have a look at this aerial photograph of Leather Tor (below). Linking back to the opening discussion about the importance of landscape descriptors to people in an oral and aural age, this feels like a better designation. Yes the tor is steep, but how much more precise is it to describe it as being like a spine?

4. Riddipt

The old stoney trackway descends to Leather Tor Bridge, passing a Vooga – a small cave – on the left. Thirty two feet long this excavation, possibly originally an adit formed by the hunt for minerals, was more latterly used by farmers to store potatoes (Hemery, 1983). Leather Tor Bridge itself invites you to loiter by the gathering Meavy waters. As with Leather Tor Farmhouse, Leather Tor Bridge lies to you about its age. Its simple structure – essentially a clapper with sides – has a superannuated simplicity. However, the tare-and-feather building stones of its structure are a giveaway to its youth. Its construction was commissioned by Walkhampton Parish Council in 1833 and it was built by George Worth and William Mashford, possibly in order to service the increasing use of agricultural carts in the 19th C (Hemery, 1983).

But how was the river crossed before the bridge? The time-worn ford is easily observed beside the bridge but the stepping stones that provided this location with its earlier name – Riddipit Steps – are now gone. This dash of stepping stones traversing the river were observed by Hemery who, writing in 1983 (p126) noted seven ‘steps’; four in situ and three displaced by flood which ‘served man and beast here since the Bronze age‘ . Enquiring today, whilst there are numerous boulders in the stream that fit the bill, it is no longer possible to discern any ordered steps across the river.

Returning once again to my theme of place-names, Riddipit is listed in my book of Devon place names (Gover et al, 1931) which states that ‘Riddy Pit’ is first documented in a deed of 1611 and is likely to mean ‘Reed Hollow’. Well, that’s boring isn’t it? Whilst this is another plausible definition, how distinguishing would ‘reed hollow’ be as a place name on Dartmoor, given the whole darn landscape is covered by reedy hollows? Hemery is also unconvinced but doesn’t offer an alternative. I am going to speculate though.

IYou don’t need to be particularly observant to see that the ground around here is red. One need only stick one’s nose in the potato cave to see that. As well as the ‘growany’ sub soil being red, there is clearly an underlying local geology of red granite. This can be seen in the fabric of the road surface which is composed of numerous red rocks. These appear on peripheral glance to be bricks but do not be fooled by the brick-red colour. So, with these observations I am more inclined to think that the name Riddipit derives from the tin-working that occurred here. This location has the tinning triumvirate of streamworks, openworks and mine adits. The details in the heritage record show that no clear dates can be assigned and that all of these tin extraction features here have the possibility of being of great age. My own inclination is therefore that the name relates to the distinctively red ground exposed by mining, and likely derives from the Celtic – Rudh Pytt – red pit.

5. Raddick Lane

I said at the outset that I was not overly interested in getting into the precise details of the exact course of this route but in the case of Raddick Lane I am going to, not to search hopelessly for a definitive answer to ‘the way’, but because it intrigues and challenges me to think more critically about landscape. As a non-expert writing this blog I feel it helps me to learn and hopefully develop my understanding.

The route as proposed by Hemery and others sees this monastic way as ascending Raddick Lane over the lowe slopes of Raddick Hill and passing Crazywell Pool. So, the first thing I am trying to get clear about is why the route would go up via Crazywell Pool only to then descend to what Hemery calls the Whiteworks track? This track is dry and climbs a gentle gradient and so the lower route feels like it has a lot going for it. I therefore assume the Crazywell Pool preference means that the Whiteworks track is more youthful and didn’t exist as far back as the Raddick track. Furthermore, Fleming (2010, 2011) stresses the importance of riding in the formation of these early ways, and so the firm ground and good visibility offered from the higher route would also have been preferable.

Although slightly re-located, the cross at Crazywell is thought to have originally been sited right next to the pool and so, in the monastic iteration of the route, it certainly looks like it passed this way via Raddick Lane. Given the danger that this steep sided pool must have presented to travellers, especially looming out of nowhere in dense fogs, it seems logical to me that Crazywell Pool must have been excavated after the monastic crosses were erected. Surely you wouldn’t choose to lead people to such a hazard? It is also interesting that effort seems to have gone into filling in the top of the tin gert which has resulted in Crazywell being dammed and it becoming a pool. Why bother doing this? Given the deep gert would have caused an obstacle, forcing people to circumvent Crazywell Pool by diverting round the back, I wonder if it was filled in so that travellers could once again get easy passage?

The final intrigue for me lies with Raddick Lane itself. Fleming (2011) talking about this route as a pre-monastic track between Ashburton and Tavistock states that:

Further west, the present route down Raddick Lane has been modified to pass between medieval and post-medieval farms, and it swerves to avoid the deep tinwork at Riddipit. The ‘Saxon’ course would have led rather more directly from somewhere near the head of the present Raddick Lane

Fleming (2011)

Yes, maybe, but this supposes that a Saxon riding route would be able to take a direct path over the blank canvas of lower Raddick Hill. Given everything else about the context and history of this area I am unconvinced that the land here would be so untouched as late as this. And as for the name of Raddick Lane? I haven’t been able to find any clues that feel that like they have merit other than exploring ‘rad’ which is a well-used OE element of language relating to riding, journeys and roads.

rád f (-e/-a) 1. ride, riding, expedition, journey; [rídan]; 1a. riding, going on horseback or in a carriage, a ride on horseback; 1b. going in a ship; 1c. raid; 2. an expedition on horseback; 3. a road

Old English Dictionary

6. Crazywell

The name Crazywell is variously used, not just in relation to the well-known pool but also to name other nearby places including a farm, clapper bridge, tin gert and hill (Sandles, 2016). With historical variants of the name including: Classenwell, Classiwell, and Clazywell (Hemery, 1983) what might this mean? With such an unusual sounding name you would think that more had been written but Sandles (2016) who is very thorough in these matters, wasn’t able to find much.

Consulting and Old English dictionary the word clǽsn means ‘to cleanse, clear out, purge, purify’ and wǽl means a ‘whirlpool, eddy, pool; ocean, sea, river, or flood’. So perhaps Crazywell may have started as clǽsnwǽl and means something like ‘pure pool’ or , perhaps has a meaning that relates to early tin stream-working. Tin streaming involved a process by which water was intentionally ‘streamed’ to clean out the tin from the unwanted rock and soil, so perhaps clǽsnwǽl might relate to a ‘purging river’ – i.e. one used to clean the ore?

7. Siward’s Cross

Remote, foiled by the desolate and deserted Nun’s Cross Farm, and of greater antiquity than your average Dartmoor cross, Siward’s Cross is iconic. Many of the crosses along this route are way-markers but Siward’s Cross is likely a boundary marker (albeit one that because of its position also became useful as a way-marker). It marks a point along the boundary between land belonging to Buckland Monachorum and the land that became the crown owned Forest of Dartmoor. It was mentioned in the Buckland Abbey foundation deed of 1280 but before that also noted in the Perambulation of 1240, and so it pre-dates the founding of Buckland Abbey (Heritage Gateway^f) and is therefore not a monastic cross like the others. It is inscribed with Boc Lond on its western face and, indistinguishably, with Siward on the east. But who is Siward?

The National Monuments Record states that it “is thought that the cross also once formed an 11th century boundary marker for land belonging to Siward, Earl of Northumberland” (d 1055) (Heritage Gateway^f). With the nickname ‘the stout’ Siward was a powerful man both bodily and politically (Wikipedia). Becoming one of the most powerful men in the country Siward, likely of Danish descent, served the similarly Scandinavian Cnut who ruled England (c1016-1035 ). Siward controlled most of the north firstly under Cnut and then under Edward the Confessor. He infamously defeated Mac Bethad mac Findlaich (Macbeth) in battle in 1054 and is therefore famously immortalised by Shakespeare.

Assuming that the Siward whose name is written on this cross is one-in-the same as this Northumbrian, then what is the evidence of his connection to Dartmoor? Apparently Siward was one of the Earls who witnessed, alongside King Edward, the Foundation of Exeter Cathedral in 1050. Perhaps this land, later to become the Forest of Dartmoor, was granted to him by Edward for his loyalty and his significant achievements. However, Earl Siward was not the only Siward swaggering about and there were lesser and more local men called Siward as indicated in records of Devon manors including one linked to a Siward at Tavei (Lysons and Lysons, 1822). But wouldn’t it be nice to think that Siward’s Cross provides a 1000 year old legacy; an enduring glimpse into a tumultuous century of British history in which Danes finally took power from the crumbling Saxon kingdom, only to shortly lose control to the shock and awe of the conquering Normans.

The Route

Unlike some of my recent walks this stretch is quite straightforward. All the land is on public rights of way/access land and the few stretches where you are walking on roads they are not busy.

• Starting from Walkhampton Church House take the hollow-way path SE, across Black Brook and onto the road.
• Keep on the road. It rises up to Yennadon Cross – go straight over noting the old cross.
• Continue to the junction at Lowery Cross (1) and bear left. Note the line of the old railway crossing the road.
• Stay on the road and stop to look at lower Lowery farm which has an information board about its history.

• The next stretch is accompanied by the Devonport Leat (1790s) which in places is stepped at descending intervals causing the water to rush past busily.
• At Cross Gate (2) leave the road and continue straight on along the track to the left of the leat for a short while. After about 300m this will cross the leat and descend to Leather Tor Farm (3). This site has an information board. the ruins of the newer farmhouse are fenced off but the many older ruins from previous generations of farm buildings can be explored.

• Return to the track and descend to the Meavy, noting the potato cave on the left.
• Cross the Meavy at Leather Tor Bridge (formerly Riddipit Steps) (4). Note the ford and look to see if you can see the former stepping stones.
• Over the bridge follow the ascending path left and then fork right. Notice the red granite in the lanes here.
• Climb the hill until the next junction where you need to branch left into Raddick Lane (5). Notice all the way along how well metalled these lanes were.
• Raddick Lane emerges into the open moor close to some sizeable prehistoric settlements. There is a suggestion that some of these Dartmoor settlements could be tin rather than farming hamlets.

• At this point the track disappears and the route traverses open moorland. Head straight on from the direction you came and you will reach Crazywell Pool and at the far side find Crazywell Cross (6).
• Traverse down and across the hillslope and you will reconnect with a well-formed track. Stay on this for some time.
• Just past Drivage Bottom, where the route crosses the Devonport Leat, the monastic route departs from the stone track to the right. The way is evident for a while but becomes indistinct. Don’t be tempted by the newer straight track from the young Princetown to Nun’s Cross Farm.
• I think the precise line of the route here is hard to ascertain. Aerial images show various track-like depressions, but which don’t quite connect.

References

Allen, V., 2013. Road. postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies, 4(1), pp.18-29.Allen, 20

Archiuk. Old Maps. https://www.archiuk.com/archi/archi_maps.htm

Chadwick, A. (2016). Foot-fall and Hoof-hit. Agencies, Movements, Materialities, and Identities; and Later Prehistoric and Romano-British Trackways. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 26(01), 93-120.

Devon County Council Environment Viewer. https://maptest.devon.gov.uk/portaldvl/apps/webappviewer/

Fleming, A. (2010) Horses, Elites … and Long-distance Roads, Landscapes, 11:2, 1-20,

Fleming, A. (2011) The Crossing of Dartmoor, Landscape History, 32:1, 27-45

Fox, H. (2012). Dartmoor’s Alluring Uplands: Transhumance and Pastoral Management in the Middle Ages. University of Exeter Press: Exeter.

Gover, J.E.B, Mawer, A. and Steton, F.M. (1931). The Place-names of Devon, Part I. English Place-nmae Society, Volume VIII. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge.

Hemery, E. (1983). High Dartmoor. Robert Hale: London.

Hemery, E. (1986). Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks: A Guide to 28 Routes. Robert Hale: London.

Heritage Gateway^a. The Abbot’s Way, Dartmoor. heritagegateway.org.uk

Heritage Gateway^b. Cross near Welltown Farm, Walkhampton. heritagegateway.org.uk

Heritage Gateway^c. Possible cross used in farm building near Walkhampton. heritagegateway.org.uk

Heritage Gateway^d. Stone cross at Lowery, Burrator. heritagegateway.org.uk

Heritage Gateway^e. Wayside cross 75 metres south-east of Cross Gate. heritagegateway.org.uk

Heritage Gateway^f. Nun’s Cross, Walkhampton Common, Dartmoor Forest. heritagegateway.org.uk

Langlands, A. (2019). The Ancient Ways of Wessex: Travel and Communication in an Early Medieval Landscape. Windgather Press: Oxford.

Lysons, D and Lysons, S. (1822) Magna Britannia: Volume 6, Devonshire, London. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/magna-britannia/vol6 [accessed 25 March 2021].

Old English – The Portal to the Language of the Anglo-Saxons. https://old-engli.sh/index.php

Sandles, T. (2016). Crazywell Pool. Legendary Dartmoor. legendarydartmoor.co.uk

SW Lakes Trust. Leathertor Farm. Public Information Board.

Wikipedia. Siward, Earl of Northumbria. wikipedia.org