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Cranmere Pool

Dartmoor Forest, Devon

Grid ref: SX 6040 8580

Cranmere Pool is a small depression within a peat bog in the northern half of Dartmoor, Devon, England, at grid reference SX604858. It lies 560 metres (1,840 ft) above sea level on the western flank of Hangingstone Hill, close to the source of the West Okement River, about 500 metres (550 yd) north west of the source of the East Dart River, and about the same distance west of the River Taw's source.

Read more on Wikipedia

The pool's best-known legend, "Benjie Geare," is built on a real person: Benjamin Gayer, a 17th-century mayor of Okehampton.

Cranmere Pool has its own claim to fame beyond its legend: Chagford guide James Perrott placed the first letterbox here in 1854, the origin of the Dartmoor pastime of letterboxing. The pool also provided the setting for Ernest George Henham's 1906 novel A Pixy in Petticoats, which uses the pool and its letterbox as a plot device.

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