"I do not believe any lady could get to Cranmere in a damp year, when every crack in the soil would be filled with water, and the ground soaking and shaking underfoot. Indeed I presently grew quite exhausted ; we knew the pool must be quite close to us, yet could not find it...'
Beatrix F. Cresswell, writing in the Homeland Handbook 'Dartmoor and Its Surroundings' in 1900 did get to Cranmere Pool, directed by old Mr Perrott, the legendary moorland guide of the day, who she had been to visit the night before for instructions.
' An expedition to Cranmere Pool is an undertaking to be approached with much consideration. The weather should be of the finest; indeed a season of settled dryness is almost necessary for reaching the place at all. From 18 to 20 miles of hard walking must be expected...'
The trouble was that when Beatrix arrived at Cranmere Pool she was filled with a deep sense of anxiety and foreboding...
'I shall never forget the impression of utter loneliness that seemed to gather over the Moor - as far as I could see only dark swampy soil; the very heather seemed no colour in that dreary hollow...the great tors seemed to shut me in...a desperate wish to get up and run away seized me, yet I dared not stir for fear my companion should lose me altogether.'
I doubt any of this can have been helped by the dress of the day, or the lack of good maps, waterproofs, breathable layers, goretex boots, a comfortable rucksack with two litres of water on board and a pair of Pacer Poles, all of which I had upon my person when I ventured out to Cranmere Pool on a guided walk on Bank Holiday Monday. I booked it ages ago and had been wondering for months what the weather would be like because it was going to be a challenging eight hour day...little was I to know that it would be the hottest Bank Holiday on record.
But unlike Beatrix I savoured every second. A small group of ten ably led by the very nimble Shona from the Dartmoor Rescue Group (who had valiantly instructed us to leave our safety kit behind and use the weight for food and water instead, while she carried a rucksack the size of a bungalow). Mile after mile of vast open space, the colours of the Moor defying description and the sense that here is a place virtually unchanged by history, no signs of habitation bar the occasional hut. Cranmere sits in the midst of the military training area but we have the Moor to ourselves in August.
Cranmere Pool, as well as being the location for the Moor's first letterbox, is high Dartmoor, the upland fens the source of many of the south-west's biggest rivers and I haven't walked them for a long time. Teign, Dart, Taw, Okement all have their heads here, so the ground is understandably boggy and soggy but not impossible if, as Beatrix advises, you choose the right conditions for the journey.. and certainly don't even bother if rain is forecast.
The high ground alternately crunched and sloshed underfoot and there was some bog-hopping and stick-prodding from one spot to the next whilst keeping a careful eye for this sort of thing...
And then when you reach Cranmere Pool (proof on my mobile OS map that I really did)
...this unimposing stone cabinet is what you will find...
But inside there are treasures...
Duly signed by me, albeit not very imaginatively.... I was very very hot.
...and my own little book stamped...
And this is the extent of the 'pool' , the basin is thought to have been drained many years ago...
In Beatrix's day...
'The pool must be described as a moist expanse of peaty soil too soft to tread on, yet seldom covered with any great depth of water. In truth the whole locality is the 'urn of the Moor, whence the rivers have their birth.'
Walking back we passed the head of the East Dart river, birth place of Alice Oswald's Dart, and I was sufficiently overcome to think that deserves a post of its own. I'm not sure I have ever been to a more evocative and silent place.
Meanwhile I survived sans disaster or unwanted sequelae beyond anything that a prolonged soak in a Radox bath couldn't resolve, and blessed the day that I had decided to buy this fancy water reservoir thing with a drinking tube attached that slotted effortlessly, neatly and comfortably into my rucksack, because it kept me little-and-often hydrated throughout the day.
Oh that and and my lovely boots of course...
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