In some ways this story shows the extreme difficulty of being accurate when you are writing historical works. While it is possible that somewhere amongst the old Abbey papers a record of the event exists, I seriously doubt it. If such a record was there, the keen eye of Professor H.P. R. Finberg would have spotted it years ago, and he would have gleefully reported it in his superb history Tavistock Abbey (Cambridge University Press, 1951).
The way that history, or much of it, has been passed down through the centuries is not by means of researched and authenticated material, but by word of mouth. Stories which once bore a shred of truth are now so embellished and distorted that the man behind the myth of Robin Hood, for example, would be hard put to recognise himself, just as the Dark Ages warlord King Arthur (if he ever existed) would be astonished to hear about Camelot and his Knights of the Round Table. Word-of-mouth stories were subsequently written down, of course, and then were copied out by others and used as ‘historical’ documents. In this way we learn of the flight of Brutus (not the assassin) from Troy and his eventual landing in Devonshire, where he wrestled with and beat the indigenous population of giants, thereby taking over the entire kingdom of England, Wales and Scotland. That story, originally invented by Virgil, appeared in many monastic histories after Geoffrey of Monmouth first penned it. Subsequently, when King Edward I needed a justification to lay claim to Scotland, his spin-doctors hit upon the idea of following up this Roman concept. If the original men to arrive on Albion found a single, discrete political unit which they conquered, the logic said, the island always had been one entity, and still should be; thus the King of England was obviously the King of Scotland and Wales.
The Scots disputed this. Then, as now, they distrusted the ‘spin’ or propaganda emanating from Westminster. This claim, and the Scottish rejection of it, was to bedevil Anglo-Scots relations for hundreds of years, until the Scots agreed to let the English share their Royal Family in 1603 (James VI of Scotland; James I of England).
So what of the Abbot’s Way itself?
We know that hundreds of years ago a series of stone crosses was erected in southern Dartmoor. At some point it was given the name of the Abbot’s Way. This could have been because the Victorians noticed that it ran from the Abbey at Buckland to the Abbey at Buckfast – but others have disputed this. R. Hansford Worth points out that many tracks across the moors were well-defined long before the monasteries were built. The path from Buckfast to Nun’s Cross is unmarked by crosses – although they could have been stolen, of course. In his book Worth’s Dartmoor (1967) he proposes that if the Abbot of Buckfast did sponsor a new path, it would have gone by Holne over the Holne Ridge to Horn’s Cross. From there it went over Horse Ford on the O Brook to Down Ridge (where there are two crosses), on to Ter Hill, and then to Childes Tomb via Mount Misery. After a cross west of Fox Tor Mire, it led to Nun’s, or Siward’s, Cross. After this section, the route follows more closely the way marked on modern Ordnance Survey maps.
Now, I cannot claim any great knowledge of this part of the moor, but I rather like Worth’s methodology: seeking out and following the line of all the crosses – and, of course, there were more of them in his time. And those which had gone in Worth’s day were still sometimes remembered by his contemporaries (who had themselves dug them up to use as gateposts), so for the purposes of this book I have assumed that Worth was correct. If you look at the map of the area, it is very noticeable that on the route suggested above, between Buckfast and Nun’s Cross, you pass nine stone crosses; by following the route marked as the ‘Abbot’s Way’ on the map, you pass two. If the Abbot’s Way was marked by crosses, which route is more likely?
If you wish to follow in the footprints of the story, I would recommend Eric Hemery’s excellent Walking Dartmoor’s Ancient Tracks (Robert Hale, 1986). Like me, Hemery prefers Worth’s route rather than the curious one given on the OS maps. And don’t forget to buy the Dartmoor Rescue Group’s book on walks in Dartmoor, because it gives excellent advice on all aspects of walking. Most of all, enjoy the feel of the moors. There are few places in our crowded little island where we can really see how things would have been, hundreds of years ago. Dartmoor has changed in many ways, but as you stand at Siward’s Cross and gaze south and east, it is easy to sense the millions of people who have tramped past here over the centuries, through rain and sleet, frozen to the marrow, undernourished and desperate, and weighed down by overwork.
I only hope you don’t feel the same as them!
Michael Jecks
Dartmoor
July 2001
The Last Templar Mysteries
The Last Templar
The Merchant’s Partner
A Moorland Hanging
The Crediton Killings
The Abbot’s Gibbet
The Leper’s Return
Squire Throwleigh’s Heir
Belladonna at Belstone
The Traitor of St Giles
The Boy-Bishop’s Glovemaker
The Tournament of Blood
The Sticklepath Strangler
The Devil’s Acolyte
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First published in the United Kingdom in 2001 by Headline Book Publishing
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Canelo
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