Southcott is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

in the

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Okehampton Hamlets Okehampton Hamlets is a civil parish in the Borough of West Devon and the English county of Devon, it runs independently from the Okehampton Town Council, meetings are held at the Meldon Village Hall. The Parish of Okehampton Hamlets is a rura ...

, in West Devon, England. The hamlet name is

Anglo Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

in origin and means 'southern cottage'. The hamlet, little more than one road of cottages, is located to the west of the town of

Okehampton Okehampton ( ) is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in West Devon in the English county of Devon. It is situated at the northern edge of Dartmoor, and had a population of 5,922 at the 2011 census. Two electoral wards are based i ...

and north of Dartmoor National Park.

Southcott Cross

Southcott Cross is a unique Dartmoor cross. The cross is 6'3" tall and is octagonal in shape. The

Stone cross Stone crosses (german: Steinkreuze) in Central Europe are usually bulky Christian monuments, some high and wide, that were almost always hewn from a single block of stone, usually granite, sandstone, limestone or basalt. They are amongst the ...

is unique as it depicts two humans, one on each side. At the front is a

Crucifix A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...

and the reverse is believed to be the

Virgin Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother o ...

praying, as the figure's hand are depicted together. It is believed that the cross was put there in the c13th Century as a waymaker cross to the

Cistercian The Cistercians, () officially the Order of Cistercians ( la, (Sacer) Ordo Cisterciensis, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint ...

monks A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedicat ...

of the nearby

Brightley Priory Brightley Priory was founded in 1133 as a Cistercian monastery. It was built in 1136 and was situated about two miles north of Okehampton in Devon and was abandoned by the monks after only 5 years on their removal to a nearby site which became For ...

, on the bank of the West Okement River.

References

External links

* * Hamlets in Devon Villages in the Borough of West Devon {{Devon-geo-stub