MOORLAND AND BORDER CHURCHES IN DEVON. 411 
distant example, Dundry Tower, in Somersetshire (one of the finest 
in that county of noble towers), is built on the crown of a steep 
hill, and is visible far down the Bristol Channel. It was erected 
by the merchant adventurers of Bristol in the fifteenth century as 
a landmark for seamen. 
One of the most ancient edifices of this class in England is the 
little beacon church on Brent Tor. Brent Tor, or Bren, as it is 
still sometimes called in the neighbourhood (from the Saxon word 
Brennen, to burn), at a very early period was no doubt a beacon, 
on which wood, turf, and other fuel was burnt by way of signal. 
There was probably a line of beacons on the Dartmoor tors, and the 
intelligence of invasion or distress would be communicated by a 
rapid succession of beacon fires. The present building, erected in 
the thirteenth century, but perpetuated the purpose to which the 
hill had been devoted from a remote time. It was the church's con- 
secration of the site as a sea mark, and not unlikely (though op- 
posed to the common tradition) the building was erected by the 
abbots of Tavistock, to whom the lands belonged, who in this way 
probably turned their piety to practical account. Most of the 
church is of the same period as the earliest existing remains of the 
Abbey, those very beautiful fragments of an Early English arcade 
in the churchyard at Tavistock. Tradition says that the foundations 
of the little church were at first laid at the foot of the mount ; but 
that the devil removed the stones by night from the base to the top, 
from no preference, it is presumed, to the loftier site, but with the 
design of frustrating the project altogether. In this he was disap- 
pointed; for the builders continued their labours at the summit, 
though often harassed by furious winds, and the visits of the arch- 
enemy. On its completion, however, and immediately after its dedi- 
cation to St. Michael, the patron saint hurled upon the devil such 
a tremendous mass of rock, that he beat a hasty retreat, and never 
again ventured near the sacred building, so that the beacon lights, 
which were afterwards set up on the top of the tower, were never 
once put out by the prince of darkness. An inscription on the 
south wall has probably served to keep alive a tradition not yet 
quite discredited by some natives of the Moor: — "On this rock 
I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." Possibly some real incidents, arising out of the 
opposition of the inhabitants, may have given some colour to 
the tradition. Euller, in his " Worthies of Devon," written 
