Childe's Tomb - Childe The Hunter

Childe The Hunter

According to legend, the cross was erected over the kistvaen (burial chamber) of Childe the Hunter, who was Ordulf, son of Ordgar, an Anglo-Saxon Earl of Devon in the 11th century. The name Childe is probably derived from the Old English word cild which was used as a title of honour.

Legend has it that Childe was in a party hunting on the moor when they were caught in some changeable weather. Childe became separated from the main party and was lost. In order to save himself from dying of exposure, he killed his horse, disembowelled it and crept inside the warm carcass for shelter. He nevertheless froze to death, but before he died, he wrote a note to the effect that whoever should find him and bury him in their church should inherit his Plymstock estate.

His body was found by the monks of Tavistock Abbey, who started to carry it back. However, they heard of a plot to ambush them by the people of Plymstock, at a bridge over the River Tavy. They took a detour and built a new bridge over the river, just outside of Tavistock. They were successful in burying the body in the grounds of the Abbey and inherited the Plymstock estate.

The first account of this story is to be found in Risdon's Survey of Devon which was completed in around 1632:

It is left us by tradition that one Childe of Plimstoke, a man of fair possessions, having no issue, ordained, by his will, that wheresoever he should happen to be buried, to that church his lands should belong. It so fortuned, that he riding to hunt in the forest of Dartmore, being in pursuit of his game, casually lost his company, and his way likewise. The season then being so cold, and he so benumed therewith, as he was enforced to kill his horse, and embowelled him, to creep into his belly to get heat; which not able to preserve him, was there frozen to death; and so found, was carried by Tavistoke men to be buried in the church of that abbey; which was so secretly done but the inhabitants of Plymstoke had knowledge thereof; which to prevent, they resorted to defend the carriage of the corpse over the bridge, where, they conceived, necessity compelled them to pass. But they were deceived by guile; for the Tavistoke men forthwith built a slight bridge, and passed over at another place without resistance, buried the body, and enjoyed the lands; in memory whereof the bridge beareth the name of Guilebridge to this day.

Finberg pointed out, however, that a document of 1651 refers to Tavistock's guildhall as Guilehall, so Guilebridge is more likely to be guild bridge, probably because it was built or maintained by one of the town guilds.