Cross incised on a boulder, Riddon Ridge

• Grid reference: SX 66637 76665 (Dartmoor Explorations)
• Nearby: A large hut circle about 30 m south west
• Scheduled area: Field systems on Riddon Ridge, Historic England list entry 1018930, first listed 1971

A large boulder on the east side of Riddon Ridge, just below a large hut circle, has an inscribed cross at one end. Dartmoor Explorations suggests, as a theory only, that it may mark a route from the old tenement of Riddon that joined the Lych Way at Bellever.

Ten inscribed stones on the ridge carry the marks RHR, SL, TS and TS H, thought to relate to farming rights. TS is read as Thomas Smerdon around 1754, RHR as Robert Henley Rogers around 1800 and SL as the Rev. Samuel Lane around 1810. The ridge's field systems are scheduled as list entry 1018930, first listed in 1971. The entry covers two irregular field systems with settlements and at least 32 and 60 fields, part of the Dartmeet coaxial field system, at least seven cairns, four lettered boundary stones and lines of prospecting pits. It also mentions an unusual medieval feature: a solitary recumbent stone with an incised cross on one face, believed to be a coffin stone on which coffins were rested on the way to the Lich Way. The entry does not say whether this is the boulder described here.

Sources: Dartmoor Explorations, Riddon Ridge inscribed stones | Historic England list entry 1018930 | Dartmoor Crosses, the same cross with photographs.