Original - The MAN & Other Families

io The Ancient Stone CrossesWhether this was so, and it had ever served the purpose of aplace of shelter to the watchers of the beacon fire, I am unableto offer an opinion, but that such blazed upon this prominentheight, there seems little reason to doubt.*Less than half a mile to the northward of Brent Hill, andby the side of the road that leads from Lutton Green toGigley Bridge, is a small marshy spot known as Bloody Pool,though it is only in very wet seasons that much water can beseen there. What were supposed to be weapons of bronze,but which are in reality the heads of ancient fishing spears,were found there many years since, and may be seen in theAlbert Memorial Museum at Exeter.The manor and church of Brent belonged from a veryearly period to the Abbey of Buckfast ;after the Dissolution,the former was bestowed upon Sir William Petre, and in 1806a great portion of it was sold. There are two fairs yearly,and Risdon tells us this was so in his time, but more ancientlyit seems to have been held once a year only, at Michaelmas,and lasted for three days. According to Risdon, one fair wason May-day, and the other on St. Michael's-day, but in1778, more than a century and a half after our topographerwrote his Survey of Devon, the days on which they stillcontinue to be held were fixed. The fairs commence atnoon on the Monday before the last Tuesday in the months ofApril and September, and continue till the Wednesday night ;but the Tuesday is now the day of the actual fair. The oldcustom of holding it "under the glove" is not departed from,the glove being raised upon a pole when the fair commences,and kept there during its continuance. This still prevails inmany towns and villages, and is an ancient form of charter a;glove sent to the inhabitants was a token that the rightsprayed for were granted.* If a signalling station so near to the Eastern Beacon on UgboroughMoor should seem to have been unnecessary, it may be well to explainthat it is doubtful whether that ever was a beacon hill. The nameappears to be a corruption of Pigedon, by which appellation itwas anciently known, according to an old map of Dartmoor, nowin the Albert Memorial Museum at Exeter. On the same map, the moor-is marked as Pickegate at the foot of the hill (now called Peek Gate)Yeat, and old people in the neighbourhood used to speak of the height asPicken Hill. Brent Hill would also seem to be the more suitable of thetwo for the purpose of signalling.