It is said that Foxtor Mire on Devon's Dartmoor was Conan Doyle's inspiration behind the Great Grimpen Mire in The Hound Of The Baskervilles, where Stapleton met his death attempting to escape from Holmes and Watson along his secret path between pools and swamps.
According to R.W. Bamberg's HAUNTED DARTMOOR (A Ghost-Hunter's Guide) 'Childe the Hunter' died there when separated from his companions while out hunting and succumbing to exposure on this desolate spot. Before freezing to death, he (probably a Saxon lord called Ordulf) is said to have written a will in his own blood, leaving his Plymstock estates to whichever church gave him burial.
The monks of Tavistock found his frozen body, carrying it back to their abbey and so gaining the nobleman's rich legacy. Childe's Tomb at Foxtor Mire marks the spot where he died - and sometimes at dusk, in conditions of poor visibility, a procession of grey-clad monks carrying a coffin has been seen by pony-trekkers and solitary walkers in the vicinity. This has emerged briefly from the mist, while a plainchant is heard on the wind.
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