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Ghost · Albury · Famous

King John and the woodcutter's daughter

The water here is so clear it seems unreal. A Victorian novelist gave it a drowned girl and a wicked king.

Open on the map: directions, what's there today and read-aloud →

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The Silent Pool

So clear you can see the bottom, and whoever is lying on it.

See it clearly

What's there
Clear blue spring-fed pool among box trees
Legend from
Martin Tupper, Stephan Langton (1858), then oral retelling
Best time
Still mornings for the colour of the water
Tone
Eerie
GhostsRoyalsWater

Before you go

Free car park off the A25 and a path round the pool; the distillery next door is separate. Check before you go.

  • Silent Pool
  • Near A25
  • The pin marks the spot.

A king on horseback, a girl in the water, and a pool so clear you can see the bottom. Look for her at midnight.

Silent Pool is a clear, spring-fed lake under the North Downs near Albury, its water a strange chalky blue. The story says a woodcutter's daughter was bathing here when King John rode up on his horse. Frightened, she waded out of her depth and drowned, and her brother drowned trying to save her. People later said her figure could be seen beneath the water at midnight. Local historians trace the tale to Martin Tupper, an Albury writer whose novel Stephan Langton appeared in 1858. Tupper even gave the pool its name; it used to be called Sherbourne.

Sources

  1. Sherbourne and Silent Pool, Trevor Brook, Albury History Society transcript 139 —
  2. Tupper's tale wove Magna Carta fact with the myth of the Silent Pool, The Guildford Dragon —
  3. Silent Pool, Surrey Hills National Landscape —
  4. Silent Pool, Wikipedia —
  5. Parishes: Albury, VCH Surrey vol. 3 (1911–12), British History Online —

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