Cranmere Pool

Cranmere Pool is a small depression within a peat bog in the northern half of Dartmoor, Devon, England, at grid reference SX604858.

[3] In one version of the legend "Benjie Gear" was convicted of stealing sheep and as punishment was ordered to empty Cranmere Pool with a sieve.

Being a resourceful person, he stole and killed another sheep and lined the sieve with its skin which allowed him to empty the pool so quickly that the town of Okehampton, in the valley below, was flooded.

For this misdemeanour he was hanged on nearby Hangingstone Hill and his spirit was condemned to spin all the sand at the bottom of the now-empty pool into ropes.

[4] In Ernest George Henham's 1906 novel A Pixy in Petticoats (London: Alston Rivers), Cranmere Pool and its famous letterbox play a vital part in the plot.