Benchmark & rivet - Bullseye Stone, Grimstone and Sortridge leat - Dartmoor, Devon - European Historic Survey Stones, Monuments and Benchmarks on Waymarking.com

Cut benchmark and rivet on the Bullseye Stone, near Windy Post Cross, Dartmoor.

"“Bull’s Eye – A stone set in the bank of a leat having a hole drilled to release water from the leat into a branch channel. It can be stopped at will with a turf.”, Hemery, 1983. p.28.

Along many of the Dartmoor leats sit a variety of Bullseye Stones, which are a simple way of controlling water flow. In basic terms you have the main leat off which smaller branch leats take water to nearby farms and houses. Obviously with something as big as a leat the easiest and cheapest way of managing the water flow was to obstruct it with a huge, holed slab of granite. Then when water was needed it was allowed to flow into the branch leat, when not the hole was simply plugged up thus allowing the water to flow on down the main leat. An old moor-term for the Bullseye was the ‘inch hole’.

Of all these Bullseye Stones along the Grimstone and Sortridge leat, the most famous has to be that which can be found beside the old Windy Post cross. In 2013 £5,800 was spent from the Dartmoor Sustainability Development Fund in repairs to the Windy Post Bullseye Stone such is its importance although the total cots of the project was £8,000."

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"The Windy Post is an ancient and rugged granite cross known as either the Beckamoor Cross or more romantically the Windy Post and Windy Stone. For centuries this lone cross has stood upon the bleak moorland with just the murmuring Grimstone and Sortridge leat for company. Many writers consider that the age of the cross dates back to the sixteenth century and that possibly it replaced a much earlier cross, English Heritage however notes on its Pastscape Record that the cross is of medieval origin and date it to between 1400 and 1499 which tends to buck the trend of all Dartmoor writers. Today the time-worn granite pillar displays the effects of numerous cattle and ponies rubbing up against it which has resulted in a somewhat ‘drunken’ tilt. As with many of Dartmoor’s granite relics the Windy Post proudly wears a multi-coloured coat of lichens which serve to emphasise its rugged texture."

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