Crazywell Pool or Crazy Well Pool is a large

pond A pond is a small, still, land-based body of water formed by pooling inside a depression (geology), depression, either naturally or artificiality, artificially. A pond is smaller than a lake and there are no official criteria distinguishing ...

situated about south of

Princetown Princetown is a villageDespite its name, Princetown is not classed as a town today – it is not included in the County Council's list of the 29 towns in Devon: located within Dartmoor national park in the English county of Devon. It is the ...

just off the path between Burrator and Whiteworks on the western side of

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

Devon Devon ( ; historically also known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel to the north, Somerset and Dorset to the east, the English Channel to the south, and Cornwall to the west ...

, England at . It is about long and has a surface area of about . The pool is thought to be the result of excavations by tin miners, and is either a flooded mine shaft, or a

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

. The presence of tin workings downhill from the pool support this view. The valley of Newleycombe Lake has been extensively worked with many mining remains along its short length. The level of the pool never varies much from its mean—it is maintained by a hidden spring and by subterranean drainage at its lower end. Near to the pool is Crazywell Cross, one of the line of crosses that marked the ancient track between Buckfast Abbey and

Tavistock Abbey Tavistock Abbey, also known as the Abbey of Mary, the mother of Jesus, Saint Mary and Saint Rumon, is a ruined Order of Saint Benedict, Benedictine abbey in Tavistock, Devon. The Abbey was surrendered in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monaste ...

. In 1998, Nathaniel Burton, a sixteen-year-old recruit in the Royal Marines, died in Crazywell Pool. He was taking part in a routine training exercise and drowned while crossing the icy waters of the pool.

Legends

There are no natural lakes on Dartmoor, which may be one reason why Crazywell Pool has attracted more than its share of local legends. It was once believed to be bottomless, and according to local legend the parishioners of Walkhampton (or Sheepstor) brought up the bell ropes from the parish church to test its depth. Even after tying the ropes together—a total length of over 500 feet—and weighting the end, it was claimed they were still unable to reach the bottom. This legend was disproved in the dry summer of 1844 when the pool was almost completely pumped out by the Plymouth Dock Water Company to supplement the water supply of Devonport Leat which runs along the hillside not far above the pool. The reality is that the pool is about deep at the western end and considerably less at the eastern end. Crazywell Pool is the subject of other Dartmoor superstitions. The

water level Water level, also known as gauge height or stage, is the elevation of the free surface of a sea, stream, lake or reservoir relative to a specified vertical datum. Over long distances, neglecting external forcings (such as wind), water level ten ...

was said to rise and fall with the tides at sea, and it was claimed that at dusk the waters call out the name of the next parishioner to die and that their face can be seen in the surface of the pool at midnight on

Midsummer Midsummer is a celebration of the season of summer, taking place on or near the date of the summer solstice in the Northern Hemisphere; the longest Daytime, day of the year. The name "midsummer" mainly refers to summer solstice festivals of Eu ...

's Eve. The pool was also said to be haunted during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

by the Witch of Sheepstor, who gave people bad advice. Legend says she advised

Piers Gaveston Piers Gaveston, 1st Earl of Cornwall ( – 19 June 1312) was an English nobleman of Gascon origin, and the favourite of Edward II of England. At a young age, Gaveston made a good impression on King Edward I, who assigned him to the househo ...

, who owned the Forest of Dartmoor from 1308, and who was in hiding here after being banished from the king's court, telling him to return to court, predicting that "his humbled head shall soon be high". Instead, he was captured by the king's enemies and beheaded and his head was set up on high battlements. More recently, two young men were said to have gone to the pool at midnight one Midsummer's Eve on a motorbike for a dare, but they never returned because on their way back the motorbike came off the road, killing them both.

References

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External links

Newspaper travel review
Dartmoor Devon folklore