Copplestone Cross

DOESN'T QUITE FIT - AN EXTREMELY RARE ANGLO-SAXON MONUMENT WITH A TRADITIONAL MURDER ASSOCIATION. Found via a search of Historic England's own listings for the word 'murdered'. Historic England's own listing describes this primarily as a 10th-century boundary stone, marking the meeting point of three parishes (Crediton Hamlets, Down St Mary and Colebrooke) - the village of Copplestone itself is named after it ('Copelan' after the stone). Its quality of Anglo-Saxon interlace carving is described as very rare for South West England. Local tradition, first recorded in a charter of 974, holds that it may have been erected as a memorial to Bishop Putta, murdered around 906 while travelling between Bishop's Tawton and Crediton - but Historic England's own wording ('may have been erected as memorial to...') and Devon's Sites and Monuments Record both treat this as unconfirmed tradition rather than established fact, similar in status to this archive's Ardwell and Tingwall Stone entries. If genuine, this would be one of the oldest 'traveller murdered on the road' stories attached to any monument in this collection, predating the rest by thereabouts eight centuries.