[There is] the tradition that “Bowerman” lived in the locality at the time of the Conquest. He must have had something peculiarly striking in the pattern of his nose! Still we like to keep our “Bowerman” as a personality, and feel hardly grateful to modern learning, which comes down upon us with ponderous weight and says we have ignorantly corrupted the Celtic name of Vawr Maen, the Great Stone.
From ‘Dartmoor and its surroundings: what to see and how to find it.’ by Beatrix F Cresswell, 1900.