Richard Cabell, of Brook Hall, in the parish of Buckfastleigh on the south-eastern edge of Dartmoor, in Devon, is believed to be the inspiration for the wicked Hugo Baskerville, "the first of his family to be hounded to death when he hunted an innocent maiden over the moor by night", one of the central characters in Conan Doyle's novel The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901-2), the tale of a hellish hound and a cursed country squire. When asked in 1907 about his inspiration for the novel Conan Doyle wrote in reply: "My story was really based on nothing save a remark of my friend Fletcher Robinson's that there was a legend about a dog on the moor connected with some old family". Cabell's tomb survives in the village of Buckfastleigh.

Buckfastleigh is a market town and civil parish in Devon, England situated beside the Devon Expressway (A38) at the edge of the Dartmoor National Park. It is part of Teignbridge and, for ecclesiastical purposes, lies within the Totnes Deanery. It is 18 miles east-northeast of Plymouth, 20 miles southwest of Exeter and has a population of 3,661. It is a centre of tourism and is home to Buckfast Abbey, the South Devon Railway, the Buckfastleigh Butterfly Farm and Otter Sanctuary, the Tomb of Squire Richard Cabell and The Valiant Soldier.