In 1869 there was something more than a vague tradition that the manor courts were formerly held in the open air in a small open space or village green in the hamlet of Dunstone, and that the chief rents were deposited in a hollow or “rock basin” on the upper side of a huge granite boulder in the middle of the green, where a granite cross formerly stood. Mr Dymond resolved to revive the practice of the open-air court, and did so two years ago.
From Francis Gomme’s ‘Primitive Folk-Moots‘ (1880).
