On the original map of the royal forest of Dartmoor : illustrating the perambulation of Henry III., 1240 / by C. Spence Bate.

  • Bate, C. Spence (Charles Spence), 1818-1889.
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the original map of the royal forest of Dartmoor : illustrating the perambulation of Henry III., 1240 / by C. Spence Bate. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    approached from either side, a more mountainous appearance than the Devonshire tors generally possess. Rowe, in his Perambulation of Dartmoor, 1830, says, “ I have been unable to ascertain the exact point referred to by the original Charter under the name of Hoga; but we may conclude that it could not have been far from the banks of the Taw, in the immediate neighbourhood of Sticklepath.” What Mr. Rowe expected to find is difficult to determine ; but I believe I am correct in asserting that Hoga is but the Scandinavian name for a hill—a hill probably connected with some important event. In an article on “ The Pagan State of Ireland and its Re- mains,” published in the Dublin Magazine for August, 1870, I find it stated that “ three of the barrows about Upsal, in Sweden, are called Kong’s Hogarn, or King’s High Cairn. These kings’ barrows are traced back to an origin not very remote from Odin.” And in a note appended to this paragraph the author remarks, “ This seems a hybrid word; Hoch or Hog in German, is mons, collis. Spellman in Hoga: and cairn, Irish, a heap of stones. The Swedes call those hills on which their kings were crowned, Krenanshoga.” On the top of the hill are monumental relics of various kinds. Most of the Dartmoor tumuli are cairns formed by stones, heaped together without any respect to place or arrange- ment ; but one of these barrows on Cosdon is a low fiat mound, surrounded by stones placed on their end and sloping outwards. The barrow has the appearance of having been broken into at the centre, but not to such an extent as to suggest the idea that it has been much interfered with. A kistvaen that once was protected by a cairn of stones lies south-west of it. The cairn has been broken into, and the lust rifled of its contents. The Rev. S. Rowe mentions two other monuments, one of which is “seventy yards W. S. W. of the last. Within the area of a circular enclosure, formed of slabs set closely to- gether, being fifty-four feet in diameter, is a dilapidated kist- vaen, eight feet square, and apparently exhibiting traces of an inner coffin, or sarcophagus, the coverstone of which is not more than two feet and a half broad.” “ Somewhat more than a hundred yards N.E. by N. from the kistvaen last described, is a circular enclosure totally different from the former, as the stones of which it is com- posed are small and pebbly, and irregularly heaped together, forming a sort of miniature Pound These several records afford strong evidence that this hill