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Main image: Photo: Milestone Society, Wikimedia Commons
Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1008930) describes Blackaton Cross, also known as Roman's Cross. It is a restored granite wayside cross in a round granite socket stone, on a turf bank beside the east side of the road that ran from Lee Moor House (now gone) to Cadover Bridge. This road was a major medieval route across the south-west edge of Dartmoor. The cross is 1.79 metres high above the socket stone and leans very slightly east. It lies in the parish of Shaugh Prior, about 1.5 km north of Blackalder Tor and 1.8 km north-east of Wotter.
The head and arms, 0.515 metres high together, are ancient, and so is the socket stone, but the shaft was added when the cross was restored. It was probably a window sill originally and may at some time have been a gatepost. The arms run roughly north to south and are 0.62 metres across. The south arm is complete and rectangular in section, extending 0.2 metres beyond the shaft. The north arm is rounded, probably through damage, though it may be original. The head rises 0.19 metres above the arms. No cement shows where the head and arms meet the shaft, so an iron or steel rod has presumably been used to join them.
The shaft, 1.31 metres high and 0.32 by 0.22 metres in section, is cemented into the socket stone with two iron wedges also visible. It has a chamfer 0.08 metres wide on its north-west edge, with a possible stop at the bottom, which suggests a window sill. Its east face is very rough. The socket stone is 1.03 metres across and up to 0.3 metres deep, with its top sloping east and an old Ordnance Survey bench mark cut on its edge. A separate boulder partly buried in the turf bank just south of the cross is included in the scheduling. The cross is listed Grade II.
Sources: Historic England list entry 1008930, which cites Crossing, The Ancient Crosses of Dartmoor (1887), pages 19 to 22, Crossing, The Ancient Stone Crosses of Dartmoor (1902), pages 37 to 39, and Masson Phillips, 'The Ancient Stone Crosses of Devon, Part 1' (Devonshire Association Transactions, vol 69, 1936 to 1937), pages 305 to 306.
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Photograph by Glavind Strachan Photography“Life has become like that great Grimpen Mire, with little green patches everywhere into which one may sink and with no guide to point the track.”
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“Oh, Miss, how can I ever thank 'ee? I bathed my arms same as you told me at bedtime and got right in bed and slept till nine o'clock this morning without moving. Us haven't had such a night for months.”
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