We had a splendid walk across the hills, passing through Marldon, where the church was apparently the burial-place of the Gilbert family, of which it contained many records, including an effigy of Otho Gilbert, who was Sheriff of the County and who died in 1476.  But the chief object of interest at Marldon appeared to be a six-barred gate called the Gallows Gate, which stood near the spot where the three parishes converged:  Kingskerswell, Cockington, and Marldon; near this the culprits from those three places were formerly hanged.  We looked for the gate in the direction pointed out to us, but failed to find it.  Some people in the village thought its name of the Gallows Gate was derived from an incident which occurred there many years ago.  A sheep-stealer had killed a sheep, and was carrying it home slung round his shoulders when he came to this gate.  Finding it fastened, he was climbing over, when in the dark his foot slipped and the cord got across his neck.  The weight of the carcase as it fell backwards, added to his own, caused him to be choked, so that he was literally hanged upon the gate instead of the gallows for what was in those days a capital offence.

After passing the Beacon Hill, we had very fine views over land and sea, extending to Dartmoor and Dartmouth, and with a downward gradient we soon came to Berry Pomeroy, the past and present owners of which had been associated with many events recorded in the history of England, from the time of William the Conqueror, who bestowed the manor, along with many others, on one of his followers named Ralph de Pomeroy.  It was he who built the Castle, where the Pomeroys remained in possession until the year 1547, when it passed into the hands of the Seymour family, afterwards the Dukes of Somerset, in whose possession it still remained.

After the Pomeroys disappeared the first owner of the manor and castle was Edward Seymour, afterwards the haughty Lord Protector Somerset, who first rose in royal favour by the marriage of his eldest sister Jane Seymour to Henry VIII, and that monarch appointed him an executor under his will and a member of the Council on whom the duty devolved of guarding the powers of the Crown during the minority of his son and successor Edward VI, who only reigned six years, from 1547 to 1553; and Seymour’s father, Sir John, had accompanied King Henry VIII to his wars in France, and to the Field of the Cloth of Gold.

Henry VIII had great faith in his brother-in-law, and after the King’s death Seymour quickly gained ascendency over the remaining members of the Council, and was nominated Lord Treasurer of England, and created Earl of Somerset, Feb. 17, 1567; two days afterwards he obtained a grant of the office of Earl Marshal of England for life, and on the 12th of March following he procured a patent from the young King, who was his nephew, constituting himself the Protector of the Realm, an office altogether