Blue Pool is a flooded, disused

clay pit A clay pit is a quarry or Mining, mine for the extraction of clay, which is generally used for manufacturing pottery, bricks or Portland cement. Quarries where clay is mined to make bricks are sometimes called brick pits. A brickyard or brickwor ...

where

Purbeck ball clay Purbeck Ball Clay is a concentration of ball clay found on the Isle of Purbeck in the English county of Dorset. Geology The main concentration of ball clay in Dorset is to the north of the Purbeck Hills centred on Norden. Ball clays are sediment ...

The Purbeck Mineral & Mining Museum was once extracted. It is now a lake within the Furzebrook Estate, a park of

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a coole ...

woodland and

gorse ''Ulex'' (commonly known as gorse, furze, or whin) is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. The genus comprises about 20 species of thorny evergreen shrubs in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. The species are na ...

near

Furzebrook Furzebrook is a small village on the Isle of Purbeck, in the county of Dorset in the south of England. It is about south of Wareham and northwest of Corfe Castle, and is in the civil parish of Church Knowle. The name Furzebrook derives from t ...

on the

Isle of Purbeck The Isle of Purbeck is a peninsula in Dorset, England. It is bordered by water on three sides: the English Channel to the south and east, where steep cliffs fall to the sea; and by the marshy lands of the River Frome, Dorset, River Frome and Poo ...

, in the county of

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

, southern

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

.http://www.bluepooltearooms.co.uk/ www.BluePoolTeaRooms.co.uk Furzebrook Estate is about south of Wareham and west of

Corfe Castle Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the Corfe Castle (village), village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and ...

. The pool started life early in the 17th century as a

chalk pit Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

. Purbeck ball clay was dug from the pit from the mid-17th century to the early 20th century. The ball clay was used to make fine

ceramic A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant, and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcela ...

products, such as

smoking pipe A smoking pipe, often simply referred to as a pipe, is used to inhale (or taste) the smoke of a burning substance, typically (though not exclusively) used to consume a Psychoactive drug, psychoactive substance; this most commonly refers to a to ...

s, plates, cups and tea pots. The pit became disused before the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

, but ball clay is still extracted from other pits in the area. The title 'blue' arose because there are minute particles of

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

colloid A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a liquid, while others exte ...

suspension Suspension or suspended may refer to: Science and engineering * Car suspension * Cell suspension or suspension culture, in biology * Guarded suspension, a software design pattern in concurrent programming suspending a method call and the calling ...

within the water. These suspensions variously

diffract Diffraction is the deviation of waves from straight-line propagation without any change in their energy due to an obstacle or through an aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a secondary source of the propagating wav ...

the light depending on the particles' size (with differences in size often linked to changes in

concentration In chemistry, concentration is the abundance of a constituent divided by the total volume of a mixture. Several types of mathematical description can be distinguished: '' mass concentration'', '' molar concentration'', '' number concentration'', ...

and pH), yielding colours from red-brown, through grey and green, to the more typical

turquoise Turquoise is an opaque, blue-to-green mineral that is a hydrous phosphate of copper and aluminium, with the chemical formula . It is rare and valuable in finer grades and has been prized as a gemstone for millennia due to its hue. The robi ...

. The metallic blue sometimes found in photographs is more likely to be a reflection of the sky, as the attraction's own website makes no such claim for the water, and their leaflets call it “a turquoise jewel set in the heart of Purbeck”. In 1935 a café was opened at the site. There is also a museum and gift shop. In 1985 the estate was declared a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

. Now law protects the habitat of a variety of rare plants and animals. The site includes nature reserves managed by the

Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) is a British wildlife charity formed in July 2009 by the Herpetological Conservation Trust Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) is a British wildlife charity Charity may refer to: Common meaning ...

and a private nature reserve. Blue Pool is now a popular tourist attraction, especially because it is a place of peace and tranquillity. The pool is surrounded by of

heathland A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a coole ...

. The nationally rare

Dorset heath ''Erica ciliaris'', the dorset heath, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Erica. Description It grows to , and has leaves long, with long, glandular hairs. The flowers are long, bright pink, and arranged in long racemes. Distribu ...

and marsh gentian are common to the area. The estate is crossed by a network of sandy paths. There are steps down to the edge of the pool and there are also steps on some paths around the pool, but there is also a completely flat route around the pool, which is suitable for wheelchairs. The lush vegetation around the pool is inhabited by

grey squirrel Gray squirrel or grey squirrel may refer to several species of squirrel indigenous to North America: *The eastern gray squirrel (''Sciurus carolinensis''), from the eastern United States and southeastern Canada; introduced into the United Kingdom, ...

rabbit Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...

s and

badger Badgers are medium-sized short-legged omnivores in the superfamily Musteloidea. Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their squat bodies and adaptions for fossorial activity rather than by the ...

s. The Estate supports numerous rare birds, amphibians and reptiles. Visitors may therefore be lucky enough to spot the

Dartford warbler The Dartford warbler (''Curruca undata'') is a typical warbler from the warmer parts of western Europe and northwestern Africa. It is a small warbler with a long thin tail and a thin pointed bill. The adult male has grey-brown upperparts and is d ...

or the

nightjar Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the family Caprimulgidae and order Caprimulgiformes, characterised by long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They are sometimes called bugeaters, their primary source of food ...

. Both of Britain's endangered and protected reptiles, the green

sand lizard #REDIRECT Sand lizard {{redirect category shell, {{R from alternative capitalisation{{R from move ...

and the

smooth snake The smooth snake (''Coronella austriaca'')Street D (1979). ''The Reptiles of Northern and Central Europe''. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. 268 pp. . is a species of non-venomous snake in the family Colubridae. The species is found in northern and cen ...

, live here in considerable numbers. There are also many

dragonflies A dragonfly is a flying insect belonging to the infraorder Anisoptera below the order Odonata. About 3,000 extant species of dragonflies are known. Most are tropical, with fewer species in temperate regions. Loss of wetland habitat threate ...

and the rare

Sika deer The sika deer (''Cervus nippon''), also known as the northern spotted deer or the Japanese deer, is a species of deer native to much of East Asia and introduced to other parts of the world. Previously found from northern Vietnam in the south t ...

References

External links

{{SSSIs Dorset biological Isle of Purbeck Geology of Dorset Tourist attractions in Dorset Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Dorset Chalk pits