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Buckland in the Moor, Devon
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Main image: Buckland Beacon - 7 metres from location - image by Derek Harper (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons
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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Share a thought“Nor can imagination body forth a place more congenial to the sights and sounds of dark and blood-stained rites, than this dreary, narrow, rock-strewn glen of the Dart.”
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