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Devonport Leat Cross (Hutchinson's Cross)

Princetown, Devon

Grid ref: SX 5995 6991

Part of Princetown →

  • Grid reference: SX 59955 69913
  • Erected: 1968
  • Inscription: SLH on the west face, 1887 1966 on the east face
  • Also called: Hutchinson's Cross

This is a modern cross, not a medieval one. Eric Hemery, in Walking the Dartmoor Waterways, records that it was erected in 1968 by Lieutenant Commander B. Hutchinson of Stoke Fleming in memory of his mother, and the granite carries the letters SLH on one face and the dates 1887 and 1966 on the other.

It stands on a boulder above the right bank of the Devonport Leat, just west of Nun's Cross Farm and Siward's or Nun's Cross, which is a scheduled boundary marker recorded in the Perambulation of 1240. Historic England describes Nun's Cross as 2.2 m high with a Latin head, standing beside the old track between Buckfast and Tavistock Abbeys. It carries BOCLOND on its west face, probably for Buckland Abbey, and SIWARD on the east face, perhaps recalling the eleventh century earl. It was pushed over and broken in about 1846, and was re-erected within two years and strengthened with iron rods that can still be seen. The leat was built in the late eighteenth century to carry water from the moor to the naval dockyard at Devonport, and runs through a short tunnel near the farm. The cross is reached on foot from the Princetown to Whiteworks road.

Sources: Holiday in Dartmoor, Hutchinson's Cross (quoting Eric Hemery) | Historic England 1009096, Nun's Cross | Dartmoor Crosses, the same cross with photographs.

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