<< Our Photo Pages >> Bishop's Stone (Lustleigh) - Ancient Cross in England in Devon
Submitted by Anne T on Saturday, 01 June 2019 Page Views: 1411
Early Medieval (Dark Age)Site Name: Bishop''s Stone (Lustleigh)Country: England County: Devon Type: Ancient Cross
Nearest Town: Bovey Tracey Nearest Village: Lustleigh
Map Ref: SX7860281532
Latitude: 50.620821N Longitude: 3.717477W
Condition:
5 | Perfect |
4 | Almost Perfect |
3 | Reasonable but with some damage |
2 | Ruined but still recognisable as an ancient site |
1 | Pretty much destroyed, possibly visible as crop marks |
0 | No data. |
-1 | Completely destroyed |
5 | Superb |
4 | Good |
3 | Ordinary |
2 | Not Good |
1 | Awful |
0 | No data. |
5 | Can be driven to, probably with disabled access |
4 | Short walk on a footpath |
3 | Requiring a bit more of a walk |
2 | A long walk |
1 | In the middle of nowhere, a nightmare to find |
0 | No data. |
5 | co-ordinates taken by GPS or official recorded co-ordinates |
4 | co-ordinates scaled from a detailed map |
3 | co-ordinates scaled from a bad map |
2 | co-ordinates of the nearest village |
1 | co-ordinates of the nearest town |
0 | no data |
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Anne T visited on 11th May 2019 - their rating: Cond: 3 Amb: 3 Access: 5 Bishop's Stone, Lustleigh: This stone is on a corner of a busy road junction of three minor roads– I needed to pick my time to step part way across the road to photograph the stone from the front. The metal railing shown in the Pastscape photo is now largely hidden by a beech hedge. The stone goes about around a metre or so back into the garden of the house. It’s a lot bigger than it looks at first glance. We were also lucky that the bright sunlight also helped to show up the incised shield.
This large, carved stone, is recorded as Historic England List ID 1097368 and Pastscape Monument No. 445599. Set into the garden wall of Caseley Bunglow, the photograph of it on Pastscape shows the stone with only an iron railing behind it; a hedge has now grown up around the stone, making the railing and the depth of the stone difficult to see.
Pastscape tells us that this block is "(a) with the appearance of a socket stone of a cross, but with no socket hole cut in it. The base is square; the top has chamfered corners and is octagonal. "One side bears a carved coat of arms …" One source (Phillips, 1937) says the arms of those of Bishop William Cotton (1598-1621) of Exeter, whilst Crossing, in his "Old Stone Crosses of the Dartmoor Borders" says the arms are supposed to be those of Bishop Grandisson (1330).
Prior to 1953, the cross base had been buried in the ground, with 0.9m below ground and 0.6m above. By 1953 the stone was recorded as being supported by a modern railing and wall, as "it cold not stand unaided. The block is 1.1m square at its intended ground level and the top is reduced to an octagonal shape by chamfers 0.25m deep".
F.H. Starkey, in his 1983 book "Dartmoor Crosses & Some Ancient Tracks" tells us that the stone is a large block of granite with its upper part carefully dressed, but the lower left roughly carved. When he saw the cross base just before writing his book he says "on one face a coat of arms has been incised. At preent this is indecipherable because of the lichen that has formed upon it". The lichen has now been cleared. Starkey suggests the stone formed a platform upon which the socket stone of a substantial cross once stood.
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