Overview

For all visitors interested in the history of Dartmoor, this is an important site in local folklore. Near Fox Tor Mire is a modern cross above a circle of stones. This is probably a 19th century monument, but it marks the place of a much older, possibly prehistoric burial chamber. Legend tells how the Saxon, Childe, got caught in a blizzard while he was out hunting. The resourceful hunter killed his horse, disembowelled it and crawled inside its skin to keep warm. Before he died he was able to able to write his will, with his horse's blood, on some parchment that he had conveniently at hand. It read: "They fyrste that fyndes and bringes mee to my grave, The priorie of Plimstoke they shall have." Local history tells that the person who found him did indeed inherit the priory of what is now Plymstock.