It had
a cavity in its trunk 15 feet wide. Ale was sold in it till after the
Restoration; and when the town was burnt down in 1731, it served as an
abode for one family.--_Family Topographer_, vol. ii.
_Brent Tor Church, Devonshire, situate upon a rock._--On Brent Tor is
a church, in which is appositely inscribed from Scripture, "Upon this
rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail
against it." It is said that the parishioners make weekly atonement
for their sins, for they cannot go to the church without the previous
penance of climbing the steep; and the pastor is frequently obliged to
humble himself upon his hands and knees before he can reach the house
of prayer. Tradition says it was erected by a merchant to commemorate
his escape from shipwreck on the coast, in consequence of this Tor
serving as a guide to the pilot. There is not sufficient earth to bury
the dead. At the foot of the Tor resided, in 1809, Sarah Williams,
aged 109 years. She never lived further out of the parish of Brent
Tor, than the adjoining one: she had had twelve children, and a few
years before her death cut five new teeth.
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