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Buckland Beacon

Buckland in the Moor, Devon

Grid ref: SX 7350 7311

Part of Buckland in the Moor →

Main image: Buckland Beacon - 7 metres from location - image by Derek Harper (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons

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  • Height: 382 m (1,253 ft)
  • Grid reference: SX 734 731
  • Commandments carved: 15 December 1927 to 14 June 1928
  • Commissioned by: William Whitley
  • Carver: W. A. Clement
  • Most recent recut: 2016

Buckland Beacon is a granite tor of 382 m (1,253 ft) above the Dart valley, near Buckland in the Moor on the east side of Dartmoor. It was a fire beacon site, which is where the name comes from.

Its best known feature is the Ten Commandments, carved into rocks around its base. William Whitley, landowner of Wellstor and Lord of Buckland Manor, commissioned them. He opposed proposed changes to the Book of Common Prayer, and the local sculptor W. A. Clement carved them straight from the prayer book between 15 December 1927 and 14 June 1928. The stones also record the two dates on which the revision was defeated in the House of Commons, a hymn verse and John 13:34. Weathering has meant repeated recutting, most recently in 2016.

A Jubilee Stone on the summit records a beacon lit by the parishioners on 6 May 1935 for the Silver Jubilee of George V; it is now barely visible. The tor is not near Buckland Abbey, which is in Buckland Monachorum on the west side.

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Tors of DartmoorPrehistoric Dartmoor Walks, sites near hereThe Megalithic Portal, nearest recorded site

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“At a hamlet near the parish of South Tawton, a small town on the borders of Dartmoor, there is an interesting story told of a ghost which assumes the form of a remarkably handsome Guernsey Cow, and appears at midnight promenading to and fro”

Also on Our DartmoorDisused Farmhouse at Flood — A Grade II* listed farmhouse, long abandoned, standing on the open moor near Flood with roots in medieval or early modern settlement.

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