Mystery
Piper's Hole
The dogs came out bald. The men did not come out.
Stand where it happened
- What's there
- Sea cave with underground pool
- Legend from
- 18th-century record
- Best time
- Calm weather, low tide
- Tone
- Eerie
Dogs went in at one island and came out at the other, with half their fur gone.
Piper's Hole is a sea cave at the far north-east of Tresco, with a small entrance among boulders opening onto an underground pool. A smaller cave of the same name lies on Peninnis Head, St Mary's. Tradition, recorded by Robert Heath in the 1700s and quoted by Robert Hunt, says the two caves are joined by a passage under the sea. Men who went too far in never came back, and dogs that went right through came out the other end with most of their hair gone. Another legend says a mermaid lived in the Tresco cave. In Victorian times visitors were ferried across the pool by candlelight.