Silent Pool

, who lived in Shere village in the 1870s and 1880s, made this sketch of the Silent Pool in 1888, included in his portfolio Sketches from Nature 1869–1908]] In 1667, John Evelyn had a leat constructed from the pool to feed a fountain in the grounds of Albury Manor some to the south-west as part of the formal gardens he was laying out for Henry Howard. The pool has been a popular site for visitors since Victorian times. The lake was admired by the poet Alfred Tennyson. It has a car park, directly on the A25, and a footpath leading to a viewing platform and a walkway which encircles the pool. It can also be reached by walkers on the North Downs Way via a direct path descending the slope. In…

Silent Pool is linked to a 19th-century tale that says King John on his horse abducted a woodcutter's daughter who was forced into the deep water and drowned. According to the legend, the maiden can be seen at midnight. This story appears to have come from a book written by Martin Farquhar Tupper in 1858 called Stephan Langton or The Days Of King John (A Romance of the Silent Pool). The story is based on real historic characters including Stephen Langton, a former archbishop of Canterbury, and King John. In December 1926, when crime writer Agatha Christie disappeared, it was feared that she had drowned in Silent Pool after her abandoned car was discovered at nearby Newlands Corner. In 2010,…