34 



JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



DAETMOOE CELT. 



During the past summer, whilst at Hill Bridge, on the upper part 

 of the Tavy, Mr. Thomas Dawe, the farmer at whose house I was 

 lodging, brought me an interesting specimen of a flint hatchet. 

 He stated that he had found it in his turf ties, near the source of 

 the Walkham, when cutting turf some four years ago. The head of 

 the Walkham being a part of the moor I was unacquainted with, 

 I resolved on accompanying him on his next visit for a load of 

 turf, in order that I might see for myself the ground and the 

 position in which the implement was discovered. 



The distance of the Walkham Head from Hill Bridge is four 

 and a half miles, the road ascending nearly the whole way. We 

 passed the solitary hamlet of Waspworthy, leaving Browson Tor 

 on our left, and skirted the edge of the deep valley, in which 

 is Bog- a -tor farm. From this point you have a magnificent 

 panorama. On the !N'orth Stannon Down bounds the horizon; 

 beyond, and across the river, the grand range of Hare Tor and 

 Tavy Cleave, Great Lynx Tor, and the Lydford Tors, stretch far 

 up to the north-west of Devon — almost to the Bristol Channel. 

 Turning due west is seen Black Down with its white cottages and 

 mining houses. A little lower are the woods and rocky valley of 

 Horndon, with its village crowning the hill. In the valley, here 

 and there among the foliage, small streams of water, glistening in 

 the sun, tell where the river wanders. All this backed up by 

 Brent Tor, Kingston, and Kit-Hill, with the further ranges of the 

 Cornish hills, fading away in beautiful and numberless gradations 

 of blue distance ; and over all a sky of great rolling masses of 

 clouds, whose giant shadows chase each other over hill, tor, and 

 plain. 



But we now have to turn our backs on all this beauty, as we 

 pass through the gate, where roads cease: we entered on the 

 moor, where the ruts are scooped out by lomg use, and filled up 

 with stones but once a year. In these our wheels sank down to 

 the axles, making it quite easy to step from the waggon on to the 

 bank. We were travelling due east, with Lints Tor on our right. 

 Another mile of this rugged way brought us to the table land, 

 where rise the two rivers, on the north the Tavy, on the south the 

 Walkham. 



