Beside the road that runs below Great Houndtor, between Swine Down and Heatree Cross, lies the pathetic little mound known as Jay’s Grave.

Solid facts are hard to establish about this. Some time during the eighteenth century an orphaned child named Kitty or Mary Jay was employed at Ford Farm at Manaton. She was seduced, became pregnant and – abandoned by her lover and persecuted by local opinion – committed suicide by hanging herself in one of her employer’s barns.

In keeping with tradition she had to be buried at the nearest crossroads rather than in the consecrated ground of the parish church cemetery. Until 1823 the law required that suicides and criminals should be buried at a crossroads with a stake through their bodies. The idea was that their troubled spirits would not be able to find their way back to the village.

In 1860, James Bryant, a road mender, discovered bones in a rough grave. When the bones were examined it was discovered that they were the skeleton of a young girl. His wife remembered her mother telling her of the tale of the young servant girl who hanged herself. The owner of "Hedge Barton", nearby placed the bones in a coffin which was re-interred at the same spot, and raised as a mound as it appears today.

A well-known writer of the day, Beatrice Chase, wrote about the story and is suspected of placing fresh flowers in a jam jar at the site. Since her death others have continued this tradition of placing flowers on the grave.

Another superstition says that on certain moonlit nights a dark figure may be seen kneeling in an attitude of mourning, its head bowed and face buried in its hands, besides the grave. Although this is unsubstantiated some folk will go on quite lengthy detours to avoid the spot at night.

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