Inscribed stones in vicarage garden

Historic England's scheduling record (list entry 1003871) covers three early Christian memorial stones in the garden south of the vicarage, just south-west of the parish church. They are earthfast standing stones with Latin inscriptions dating from the 5th to 6th centuries AD.

The northernmost is granite, 2 metres high, cut NEPRANI FILI CONBEVI. It was found in the pavement of West Street, Tavistock, in 1780. The easternmost, also granite and 1.8 metres high, is cut SABINI FILI MACCODECHETI and has a small niche on one face; it was found in a blacksmith's shop at Buckland Monachorum, where it was being used as a support, in 1804. The westernmost is the earliest. It reads DOBUNNI FABRI FILII ENABARRI and also carries an ogham inscription; it was found as a gatepost beside a road on Roborough Down, also in 1804. Historic England notes that two of the names seem to have an Irish link.

Older accounts name them the Nepranus, Sabine and Nabarr stones and say they are safe where they are because of the Rev. E. A. Bray. The Exploration of Dartmoor adds that the Nepranus stone was taken out of West Street after a presentment at the Duke of Bedford's manorial court that it had become worn, slippery and dangerous to traffic, and that it then served for about twenty years as a clam (a simple one-span footbridge) over the mill leat at Head Weir.

Crossing reads the Nabarr stone as that of Dubunnius Faber, son of Nabarrus or Enabarrus, or, as Bray suggested, of Faber of the Dobunni, son of Enabarrus, and points out that it carries its inscription in both Roman letters and ogham.

Sources: Historic England list entry 1003871 (updated 27 October 2015) and PastScape 437968. The older accounts are from An Exploration of Dartmoor and Its Antiquities (pages 129 to 130) and Crossing, The Ancient Stone Crosses of Dartmoor (1902), page 148.

• Period: Medieval
• Status: Scheduled monument (Historic England list entry 1003871)
• Grid reference: SX 4810 7428 (approximate, from the listing's coordinates)