410 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
time so well that his hours glided away in one continual round of pleasure 
and delight, till an unlucky minute put a period to his existence. He de- 
parted this life Nov. 14th, 1802, aged 57, wound up in hopes of being taken 
in hand by his Maker, and of being thoroughly cleaned and repaired, and set 
a-going in the world to come." 
Some of the exemplary watchmaker's family, I was informed, 
still reside in the parish. 
The whole of Dartmoor Forest is nominally included in this 
parish, to the amount of 53,900 acres, with a population princi- 
pally located at Princetown. 
Kisdon says, " The large limits of this parish, and the far 
distance of certain villages from the church, caused some of the 
parishioners to petition Walter, the first bishop of Exon, the 13th 
of September, 1260, who, with the consent of the patrons, did 
order that the inhabitants of Balbury and Pushill, two villages in 
the moor, in regard of their distance from Lidford being eight miles 
in fair, and fifteen in foul weather, should resort to Whitcombe 
Church ; and for such privileges should pay their tythe lambs, and 
three parts of their offerings, to the parson of Whitcombe, and all 
other tythes to their mother church." 
Some notice of St. Michael's Church on Brent Tor cannot be 
omitted in these brief notes on moorland churches. Risdon de- 
scribes it as "a high rocky place, on the top whereof stands a 
church, full bleak and weather beaten, all alone, as it were for- 
saken, whose churchyard doth hardly afford depth of earth to bury 
the dead. This tor serveth as a mark to sailors, who bear with 
Plymouth haven." 
There are many instances of towers serving the purposes of beacons 
and watch towers, as well as belfries. It has been proved that the 
round towers of Ireland were intended for these as well as other 
uses. In that part of Warwickshire known as the Forest of Arden, 
the ancient spire of Astley Church was the guide of the district, 
and called the " Lantern of Arden." In the lantern built over the 
tower of All Saints' Pavement, York, a large lamp was formerly 
suspended, which served at night as a beacon to travellers over the 
extensive forest around. But more commonly the beacon fires were 
lighted in an iron framework set on the top of an angle turret. 
There is a turret of this description on St. Michael's Mount, and 
at Hadleigh in Essex, where not only the turret remains, but the iron 
grate in which the fires were lighted. To mention only one other 
