There is only one cromlech left in Devon--the Spinsters’ Stone. It is on a farm called Shilston, two miles from Drewsteignton, three from Chagford and nine from here. It consists of a flattish piece of granite about two feet thick and ten or twelve across, resting on three upright pieces about six feet high; and altogether it looks rather like a toadstool with three stems instead of one. In 1862 one of the uprights slipped away and let the top slide off, but the owner of Shilston had it set up again; and several people have set up menhirs that had fallen down. In such cases there can be no mistake; but I should not like to see a group of fallen stones set up by anyone who had a theory about Prehistoric things.
There were two rocks in the sea near Dawlish called the Parson and the Clerk; but the Parson perished in a gale. The sea had undermined him, and a big wave threw him down. There was no setting him up again, and the Dawlish people felt the want of him: so they ordained another rock as Parson with another for his Clerk. And if you go to Dawlish and inquire for the Parson and the Clerk, you will be directed to a couple of big rocks that lean up against a cliff; and there are pictures of these two imposters, not only on the post-cards but even in such books as the _Devonshire_ volume of the _Cambridge County Geographies_.
The real Parson and Clerk were in the sea off Holecombe headland, half way from Dawlish to Teignmouth. They were big rocks, more or less of human shape; and the rock nearer to the headland was a good deal taller than the other rock further out. There was some point in calling them the Parson and the Clerk, as the Clerk’s place in churches was in front of the Parson and somewhat lower down; but there is no point in giving the name to these imposters, as they are of equal size and side by side like Siamese Twins. I remember the old Parson very well indeed, and sometimes feel the loss of him as if he were a personal friend. I fear that the old Clerk is doomed. He has lost his head, and now looks more like a mummied cat, as one sees him from the train.
These rocks are ‘new’ red sandstone, and there are others on the coast with grotesque forms of human figures and heads; and such forms may be seen in granite rocks at no great distance from the coast. The best is Bowerman’s Nose, four miles from here and fourteen from the Parson and the Clerk. (I take ‘nose’ to be the same as ‘naze’ or ‘ness,’ as in Hope’s Nose at the entrance to Torbay.) In _Dartmoor_, a poem, Carrington calls Bowerman’s Nose “a granite God, | to whom, in days long flown, the suppliant knee | in trembling homage bow’d.” He there assumes that it was in its present shape when there were tribes here who would worship it; but the shape is due to weathering. In the Dartmoor granite there are fissures which are widened out by frost and wet until large blocks become detached and fall away. And this god was created by the fall of the surrounding granite from four upright fissures. These enclosed a mass a dozen feet thick and forty high; and there are other fissures running across this and giving it somewhat the appearance of a man.