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William Crossing Memorial
Buckfastleigh, Devon
Grid ref: SX 6259 6790 Find this on the Map Reference Finder
On walking routes: Abbot's Way
Main image: Crossing Memorial - 9 metres from location - image by Guy Wareham (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons
William Crossing spent a lifetime unravelling Dartmoor's secrets, its ancient stone circles, burial cairns, and trackways, recording them in detailed maps and writings that remain essential today. This memorial stands as a quiet acknowledgement of his extraordinary contribution to understanding the moor's archaeological and historical landscape.
Visitors who find it experience something of Crossing's own pursuit: the solitary contemplation of open moorland, the discovery of forgotten stones and patterns in the heath. His work transformed how we read Dartmoor's past, and the memorial itself becomes a waypoint in that ongoing conversation with the landscape he knew so thoroughly.
A December 1938 Western Morning News report announced that a bronze tablet was "shortly to be fixed" here in memory of William Crossing, "the Dartmoor Explorer." By December 1940 the paper reported the walking club Dobson's Moormen had collaborated with another group of Dartmoor enthusiasts to complete the tablet, letter-box and visitor's book.
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