‘I give unto you …………………’
This is a place I go to when I want to ‘let go’ of stuff. It’s no dragon but the female earth energy current running through Welstor Rock on Welstor Common and Buckland Beacon above Buckland in the Moor has such a gentle grounding energy.
It also has some of the best views to the South, down the Teign estuary and to the West over Dartmoor in this SE corner of Dartmoor, just north of Ashburton.
When enjoying a pint of Jail Ale from the Dartmoor brewery, sat on Back Beach outside the New Quay Inn in Teignmouth, I decided to find out what hill on Dartmoor I was looking at when I was new to the area.
Buckland Beacon is known for it’s ‘tablets of granite’ on which the ten commandments have been carved. In 1928 Parliament rejected the adoption of the proposed new Book of Common Prayer. In celebration Mr William Whitely of Wellstor celebrated this victory by commissioning the scultor W.A. Clement to engrave the ten commandments on two ‘tablets of stone’ on Buckland Beacon.
Since this date the lettering has been restored. Today they are clearly exposed. The word ‘Commandment’ seems antiquated living in our Western Liberal Democracy. Divine moral imperatives have been noticeable by their absence for many years.
It has taken a pandemic to hail their return. Thou shalt ‘ wear face marks on public transport’, ‘keep social distancing of two meters wherever possible’, ‘only meet with one other household’ etc
The recumbent granite tablet lies within the female earth energy current which runs South East to North West. 
Some commentators have regarded the granite carvings as an act of vandalism, violating the integrity of Dartmoor.
It is not unique. Another triangular slab of granite has been carved to commemorate the death of an oak tree felled in Wistman’s Wood, in order to discover its age in the name of ‘science’. Two acts of vandalism for sure. A simple dowse could have answered that question.
A Dartmoor Letterbox lies under the granite fingers of Welstor Rock, which even I couldn’t miss. The note book was full of messages of good will, written by delighted Letterbox hunters.
I forgave Mr Whitely’s granite carving on reading the New Commandment he added,
‘I give unto you that you love one another’
Gwynn Paulett, August 2020.
