22 
jointing of the granite. There is a local tradition about a Judge’s 
chair which stood on the summit of Crockern Tor. This appears 
to have been removed about the year 1815, and in a wall at Dunner- 
bridge Farm, some two miles away from Crockern Tor, there exists 
a great stone seat with a stone canopy above it, which is referred 
to by the inhabitants as the Judge’s Chair. 
Around a portion of the summit of Crockern Tor massive rocks 
appear to have been deliberately built into the ground, forming 
a retaining wall; the rocks of this walling are certainly not placed 
as nature would have deposited them. 
In Isaac Taylor’s “‘ Words and Places” the word “ Crockern ” 
is stated as being the same as the Welsh verb “‘ Gragan,”’ meaning 
“to talk aloud,” from which the English verbs to “croak” or 
to ‘‘creak”’ are derived. 
It therefore seems probable that from these rough-hewn seats, 
a Celtic race in prehistoric times talked aloud. It was their 
croaking place, or talking place, or Parliament. 
Wistman’s Woods are quite close to Crockern Tor. There are 
no woods there now; but the name survives and ‘“ Wistman,”’ 
according to Isaac Taylor, means “ Wise men.’’ Here the wise 
men lived, and on Crockern Tor they taked aloud. 
The evidence seemed strongly to indicate that perhaps for 
over 3,000 years men had congregated here; first perhaps to 
make laws, and afterwards to administer them. It seems unlikely 
that, if the continuity had ceased at any time, men should have 
returned to its elevated and exposed position. Nothing short of 
the strong binding force of tradition could have induced men to 
continue the holding of their meetings on this desolate and elevated 
outcrop of granite. 
With all the tradition supported by so much evidence, it 
seems extraordinary that this Parliament rock should be allowed 
to be worked by a local Borough Council of wiseacres as a con- 
venient quarry for road metal; but the last Mr. Hubbard saw 
of Crockern Tor was a body of men breaking up the stones at 
its base into so many yards of road metal. Mr. Hubbard explained 
the action he had taken to preserve the rocks from further demoli- 
tion, and he hoped that he may have succeeded in doing something 
to preserve them. 
Destruction was also in progress of the stone alignments and 
stone circles on Dartmoor, the material being used for road metal 
and for gate posts. 
All Dartmoor is a priceless heritage which is neither under- 
stood by those who own it nor by those who control it. Mr. 
