Welltown Cross No. 1 (shaft on the lane)

• Grid reference: SX 5406 7008 (Devon HER)
• Devon HER: MDV34227 (also MDV12703)
• Size: 1.5 m long, 0.23 by 0.34 m in section
• Date: Medieval

The Devon HER describes a granite shaft tapering towards the top, with chamfered edges and possible pyramid stops. It had been used as a door jamb into pigsties at Welltown Farm and was taken out when the farm buildings were joined to a dwelling. Dartmoor National Park then set it up again on the verge.

E. N. Masson Phillips described an octagonal granite shaft supporting the roof of a pig house on a farm near Walkhampton, and a lithograph by Prout of about 1805 shows it supporting a lean-to, perhaps its original purpose. F. H. Starkey wrote in 1983 that the socket stone and shaft were removed from the wall in 1976 and lay opposite the church house, and suggested it may have been the old Walkhampton churchyard cross, or a wayside cross on the Monks' Path between Tavistock Abbey and Buckfast. Welltown is a hamlet shown on the 1840s tithe map and its farmhouse is Grade II* listed.

Sources: Devon and Dartmoor HER MDV34227 (Heritage Gateway) | Dartefacts, Welltown | A Walk in English Weather, the monastic path | Dartmoor Crosses, the same cross with photographs.