At Western Whitaburrow, the cairn on which Petre’s Cross formerly stood, the men who used to work at the turf cutting, built themselves a little house, using stone from the cairn for the purpose, such being necessary as there is no village, or suitable habitations, nearer than Brent, which is between five and six miles distant. These men were the destroyers of the old cross which was set up on the cairn, the shaft being all that is now left of it. The workman that I have referred to informed me that the labourers used to make incursions into Huntingdon Warren, which is in full view across the valley from Western Whitaburrow, and trap the rabbits, he having sometimes seen, he added with a smile of satisfaction, as many as a dozen being boiled at one time in the crock at the house on the cairn.
From ‘Amid Devonia’s Alps’ by William Crossing (1888).