Nodden Cross (King Way, near Great Nodden)

• Grid reference: SX 5351 8740 (find spot, as given by the national park)
• Found: April 2010
• Style: Carved in relief on one side; the lower shaft was broken off
• Thought to be: Probably after the Norman Conquest (Andrew Langdon)

A previously unrecorded granite cross was noticed in April 2010 by Ron's Ramblers, a group of former Plymouth dockyard workers, set into a corn ditch wall known as the King Wall near Great Nodden. It is carved in relief on one side only and the lower shaft had been broken off. It is thought to have stood over 2 m tall, and is Greek rather than Latin in design, a style more usual in Cornwall than on Dartmoor. The Cornish cross specialist Andrew Langdon judged it probably post-Conquest.

It was most likely a wayside cross on the King Way, the Tavistock to Okehampton stretch of an old route between London and Plymouth, which may be much older than its name suggests and possibly linked to Tavistock Abbey and Lydford. The cross was taken to the national park works yard while a new base was made and was shown at the High Moorland Visitor Centre in Princetown in 2011 before it went back to the find spot. A walker's page records the missing lower section being found about 800 m to the north east, and notes that where to re-erect the cross was disputed.

Sources: Tavistock Today, new cross discovered | HeritageDaily, the cross returned to Dartmoor (2011) | Dartmoor CAM, King Wall Cross walk | Dartefacts, Nodden Cross | Dartmoor Crosses, the same cross with photographs.