Page "Totnes" Paragraph 3

According to the Historia Regum Britanniae written by Geoffrey of Monmouth in around 1136, " the coast of Totnes " was where Brutus of Troy, the mythical founder of Britain, first came ashore on the island.

Set into the pavement of Fore Street is the ' Brutus Stone ', a small granite boulder onto which, according to local legend, Brutus first stepped from his ship.

As he did so, he was supposed to have declaimed: Here I stand and here I rest.

And this town shall be called Totnes.

The stone is far above the highest tides and the tradition is not likely to be of great antiquity, being first mentioned in John Prince's Worthies of Devon in 1697.

It is possible that the stone was originally the one from which the town crier, or bruiter called his bruit or news ; or it may be le Brodestone, a boundary stone mentioned in several 15th century disputes: its last-known position in 1471 was below the East Gate.