Blakemere Pond facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Blakemere Pond |
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Blakemere Pond
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 Blakemere Pond
Location in Staffordshire
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| Location | Peak District |
| Coordinates | 53°08′54″N 1°56′30″W / 53.14833°N 1.94167°W |
| Basin countries | United Kingdom |
Blakemere Pond, also known as Black Mere Pool or Mermaid's Pond, is a small, natural lake in Staffordshire, England. It's about six miles north-west of a town called Leek. This pond is famous for a long-standing legend. People say the water is haunted by the ghost of a mermaid!
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A Look Back in Time
The earliest known record of Blakemere Pond is from 1686. It was written about by Robert Plot in his book The Natural History of Staffordshire. According to this old text, the pond used to be much bigger. It was larger than its current size of about 50 yards (46 m) across. There's even some evidence of an old trench dug near its eastern side. This might be what's left of an attempt to lower the water level a long time ago.
The Mermaid's Spooky Legend
The local legend of Blakemere Pond is quite a spooky tale. It tells of a beautiful young woman who turned down a local man named Joshua Linnet. Joshua couldn't accept her rejection. So, he wrongly accused the woman of being a witch. He managed to convince the people in the nearby town to drown her in Blakemere Pond.
But with her very last breath, the young woman is said to have put a curse on Joshua. Just three days later, Joshua's body was found by the pond. His face was covered with mysterious claw marks!
The Last Mermaid Sighting
The last time someone reported seeing the mermaid was in the mid-1800s. A group of local people tried to drain the lake. They wanted to see if the pond was truly bottomless, as some claimed.
Soon after they started digging at the southern end of the pond, the mermaid supposedly appeared. She came out of the lake and threatened to flood the nearby towns of Leek and Leekfrith. She warned them to stop their digging immediately. The story comes from a folklorist named Charlotte S. Burne. She recorded the pond's name as 'Black Mere'. You can still see a drainage ditch at the southern end of the pool today.
How Big is the Pond?
Blakemere Pond is almost perfectly round. It measures about 50 yards (46 m) across. In 1958, a diver from the British Sub-Aqua Club explored the pond. They found that at its deepest point, the pool is no more than 6 feet (1.8 m) deep. The bottom of the pond is very muddy.
