Foxes Holt (Rabbits' Holt) boundary stone

A tall boundary stone stands at the head of a small clitter on the east side of Cosdon Hill, above South Zeal. Ordnance Survey maps call the place Foxes Holt and the map labels the stone a stone post; William Crossing called the same clitter Rabbits' Holt. One face is cut SZ with a 2 beneath, the other DC with a 2 beneath: South Zeal and Duchy of Cornwall, the 2 being the stone's number in a line of posts.

Crossing, in his Guide to Dartmoor, gives the stone as about six feet high and one of a line erected in 1885 to mark the boundary of certain mineral rights, and the line between the old manor of Zeal Toeny and the land the Duchy claimed. The line followed years of argument over enclosures on this side of the hill. On 13 December 1883 the Duchy's steward led a party to pull down the new walls and the South Zeal commoners drove them off, and the enclosers bought their plots in a conveyance completed in 1884. Paul Buck's account of the stones, with grid references for the whole series, is linked below.

The series runs SZ1/DC1 near Skaigh, SZ2/DC2 here, SZ3/DC3 (no stone now visible at its recorded position) and SZ4/DC4 (moved, and re-erected in the South Zeal recreation ground in 2021). A cave or rock shelter is recorded about 60 m to the north, and the Dartefacts record places Foxes' Holt under Ladybrook Tor on Hemery's authority. The two hut circles east of Foxes Holt are described under their own listing.

• Grid reference: SX 64029 92543
• Inscription: SZ 2 on one face, DC 2 on the other
• Height: about 6 feet (Crossing)
• Erected: 1885, per Crossing
• Also known as: Rabbits' Holt; Stone Post (OS)