66 
JOURNAL OP THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
The peculiar grouping of the Saxon place-names of Devon has 
been the subject of frequent comment, and when taken in connec- 
tion with their general character proves that the early Saxon 
occupation of the county must have been mainly of an individual 1 
and peaceful kind. The " tun," the ordinary enclosure, or hedged- 
Britons, and suggests that iESelbald transported a large number of his own 
people to the North of Devon, ' ' who not only occupied the district between 
the Dartmoor highlands and the north coast, not yet Teutonized by Wessex, 
but possessed themselves of the entire line across the Western promontory 
between Dartmoor and the Tamar, as far as the south sea, near Plymouth " 
(p. 16). In support of this, he calls in aid dedications of St. Werburgh at 
Warbstow and Wembury (?) the special occurrence of such place-names as 
" worthy," " cot," and " stow " in this district ; and the find of a large num- 
ber of Mercian coins at Trewhiddle, near St. Austell, in 1774. The fact of 
some Mercian influence and colonization is apparently clear, though the area 
influenced may be questioned. The Trewhiddle hoard was not, however, 
deposited until after the year 874, in the reign of iElfred, when Devon had 
long been under Saxon sway. 
There is a very marked distinction in the racial characteristics of the 
dwellers in the three western counties. The inhabitants of Devon differ 
physically almost as notably from those of Saxon Somerset as from those of 
Keltic Cornwall. This was brought out prominently by Dr. Beddoe in the 
Memoirs of the Anthropological Society. (Vol. iii.) The average height of 
Devonshire men, except towards the borders of Cornwall, he found to be 
5ft. 6in. The average height of the Cornish men measured was 5ft. 7jin. 
The one was thus below, and the other above, the average for England, while 
Somerset held a somewhat middle place, the average of the figures given for 
that county being 5ft. 7in. The Cornish are regarded by Dr. Beddoe as much 
like the Welch, and still liker the Devonians, but differing from both of them 
by their large stature. (Ibid. p. 531). Strongly marked distinctions of this kind 
are not accidental ; and as we cannot well imagine that an original type can. 
have been differentiated in this way within our western area, by the influences 
of climate or occupation, we are thrown back upon distinctions ab initio. The 
Kelts of Cornwall must have been associated with a taller race than the Kelts 
of Wales to present such characteristics now. The Saxon Colonization of 
Devon cannot have proceeded precisely upon the same lines as the Saxon 
Conquest of Somerset. A partial mixture of Saxon and Kelt would account 
for the inferior stature of the modern Devonians ; precisely as the Kelts of 
the further peninsula may be presumed to have been influenced by the 
remnants of the so-called Cornish giants — the taller ruder people whom the 
Kelts dispossessed, and, as a race, exterminated. 
1 The " ings" of Devon do not represent clan names, as suggested by Mr. 
Kemble, in his Saxons in England, but are of later origin, the Saxon meadow, 
Domesday pratum. The clan or family had become less prominent as a factor 
in the national life when the Saxons reached Devon than in the earlier days 
of their immigration. 
