Cranmere Pool is a small depression within a peat bog in the northern half of

Dartmoor Dartmoor is an upland area in southern Devon, England. The moorland and surrounding land has been protected by National Park status since 1951. Dartmoor National Park covers . The granite which forms the uplands dates from the Carboniferous ...

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devon is ...

, England, at . It lies above sea level on the western flank of

Hangingstone Hill Hangingstone Hill, is a hill in North Dartmoor in the southwest English county of Devon. At 603 metres high, it is the joint third highest peak in Devon and Dartmoor, together with Cut Hill, which lies around 4 kilometres to the southwest. The ...

, close to the source of the West Okement River, about north west of the source of the East Dart River, and about the same distance west of the River Taw's source.

Location and history

The pool lies within the

Okehampton Okehampton ( ) is a town and civil parish in West Devon in the English county of Devon. It is situated at the northern edge of Dartmoor, and had a population of 5,922 at the 2011 census. Two electoral wards are based in the town (east and west). ...

Artillery Range, one of the

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

ranges. A military access road which made it possible to drive to within of the pool was closed for civilian use in 2010. Walking distance from the closest civilian road access is now about , from the north, at , at a starting height of above sea level and using the existing military access road. Cranmere Pool was once a permanent pool of water, but

William Crossing William Crossing (1847–1928) was a writer and chronicler of Dartmoor and the lives of its inhabitants. He lived successively at South Brent, Brentor and at Mary Tavy but died at Plymouth, Devon. Early life Crossing was born in Plymouth on 14 ...

, writing early in the 20th century, stated that it had been over a hundred years since this had been the case. The only time there is standing water today is after heavy rainfall. Cranmere Pool is the location of the first letterbox. William Crossing relates in his ''Guide to Dartmoor'' that James Perrott, a well-known Dartmoor guide from

Chagford Chagford is a market town and civil parish on the north-east edge of Dartmoor, in Devon, England, close to the River Teign and the A382, 4 miles (6 km) west of Moretonhampstead. The name is derived from ''chag'', meaning gorse or broom, and ...

, built a cairn in the pool and placed a bottle there for visitors' cards in 1854.

Legends

Cranmere Pool is at the heart of several Dartmoor legends, the most common of which involve the former mayor of

, Benjamin Gayer or Gear who was actually mayor of the town five times during the 17th century and has a memorial in Okehampton church vestry. In one version of the legend "Benjie Gear" was convicted of stealing sheep and as punishment was ordered to empty Cranmere Pool with a sieve. Being a resourceful person, he stole and killed another sheep and lined the sieve with its skin which allowed him to empty the pool so quickly that the town of Okehampton, in the valley below, was flooded. For this misdemeanour he was hanged on nearby Hangingstone Hill and his spirit was condemned to spin all the sand at the bottom of the now-empty pool into ropes. And since he has been unable to find any way of doing this, he is still there and can be heard on dark nights moaning and wailing about his never-ending task.

In popular culture

In Ernest George Henham's 1906 novel ''A Pixy in Petticoats'' (London:

Alston Rivers Alston Rivers Ltd. was a London publishing firm. The firm originally consisted of the Hon L.J. Bathurst and R.B. Byles and had brought out the novels of Whyte Melville and the Gilbert and Sullivan Gilbert and Sullivan was a Victorian era, Vi ...

), Cranmere Pool and its famous letterbox play a vital part in the plot. It is a story of unrequited love between Beatrice Pentreath and John Burrough that occurs primarily in Dartmoor. In August 2015 the pool was featured in BBC television's '' Edwardian Farm''.

References

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