Browney Cross socket stone (Shaugh Prior)

• Grid reference: SX 54475 60850 (Historic England)
• Listed: Grade II, list entry 1309474, first listed 2 February 1984
• Shape: Octagonal, about 4 ft across and over a foot thick
• Socket: 15 by 13 in and about 9 in deep (Crossing)

Only the socket stone remains of this old wayfarers' cross, lying on a mound in a grassy triangle at the road junction, where a fingerpost has taken its place. Crossing wrote in 1902 that the stone had evidently not been moved from its place, though despoilers had partly raised it from its bed, and that it once stood on an elevated octagon, shown by four roughly hewn stones nearby. A Geograph caption quotes measurements of 3 ft 11 in by 3 ft 9 in and at least 10 in deep, and says nobody has found out where the cross went.

Historic England lists it as the remains of a wayside cross, probably medieval, in roughly hewn granite, and says a plaque describes it as marking the route of an ancient track from Plympton Priory to Sampford Spiney. The listing speaks of a pile of stones, so it may be describing the stone and its foundation together. Crossing places the crossing on the Plympton Priory route, with a turn leading to Bickleigh. The signpost reads Browney, though several maps print Brownie.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1309474 | William Crossing, Ancient Stone Crosses of Dartmoor (1902) | Geograph photograph and caption, Derek Harper | Dartmoor Crosses, the same cross with photographs.