he moor, digging turf for fuel,
stone and sand for mending houses and lands, and taking heath for
thatching, 'paying their dues and doing their suits and services.' The
'suits and services' involved attendance at the Prince's Courts, and the
tenants' help at the time of the bullock and pony drifts--that is, when
the herds are driven off the moor by the moormen to a point chosen by
the Duchy steward, and are there identified by their owners.

In the Duchy records appear various well-known names that one does not
naturally associate with the Forest. The Conqueror granted it to his
half-brother, Robert, Earl of Montaigne; King John gave the Earldom of
Cornwall to his second son, Richard Plantagenet, afterwards King of the
Romans. This Prince 'much augmented the powers of the stannaries of
Devon and Cornwall, and under his auspices they thrived exceedingly.'
For a short time the earldom was bestowed on Piers Gaveston; Thomas
Cromwell and some others had a lease of the lead-mines on the moor for
twenty-one years; the first Earl of Bedford was 'Custos of the Forest or
Chase of Dartmoor'; and Sir Walter Raleigh was appointed Ranger and
Master Forester, besides being Lord Warden of the Stannaries. The first
perambulation of the forest boundaries probably took place in 1224, and
others have been made at intervals ever since; yet a long tale of
grievances from that date almost up to the present time might be heard
from commoners whose rights have been encroached upon.

The bounds of property owned by religious houses at certain points were
marked by granite crosses, of which a great number are still to be found
on the moor. Some of them, however, were standing long before the
monasteries were built. To take one instance, the cross on Sourton Down
has an inscription which, it has been declared, belongs to the sixth
century, and which can still be deciphered when the sun is setting and
the rays slant across it. The Abbot's Way, leading over the moor, is
marked by crosses. It ran westwards from Buckfast Abbey, and divided at
Broad Rock, near Plym Head, in the middle of the moor--one branch going
to Tavistock, and the other to Buckland Abbey. The path cannot now be
traced the whole way, but the crosses show the line. Beckamoor Cross (or
the Windy Post, as it is sometimes called), between two and three miles
south-east of Tavistock, is a typical Dartmoor cross, and a fine
example, but it cannot be numbered among the very old ones, for