THE SILENT POOL

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12999, 15 December 1902, Page 9

THE SILENT POOL

One of the loveliest spots in England —the Silent Pool of Aibury—seems in danger of disappearing. It is believed that the deepening of tho wells in the neighbourhood of the Duke of Northumberland's Estate, where the celebrated pool is situated, is the cause of the shrinkage of the water that has recently been noticed (says the London “Mail.”) It is a deep, perfectly clear chalk pool.: In its cool waiter swim a number of lazy trout, quits tame, for the pool is never disturbed by anglers, and the fish are fed by the thousands of visitors that make pilgrimage to this spot every year. In his memoirs of his father, the present Lord Tennyson says: “ I have often heard him describe this pool, the splendour and ripply play of light on the stream as it gushes from the chalk over the green sand bottom, the mackerel colours which flit about in the sunshine, and tho net work of the current on the surface of the pool, like crystal smoke.” The romantic legend .of the pool takes one back to the days of Richard the First. The story goes that within a mile of the pool there lived in a little osier-wattled hut, Hal, the woodman, whose beautiful daughter, Emma, was in the habit of stealing "away, particularly in the summer to bathe in tho silent pooh then hidden deep in the forest. One day, while swinging lazily from the boughs by the side of the pond, half in the water and half out, and twining her tresses with the water lilies,. Prince (afterward king) John suddenly made his appearance. The affrighted damsel relinquished her hold of the friendly bough, and waded quickly, screaming the while, into tho deeper water. The brutal rider forced bis steed into the water and the maiden, taking another step or two, was struggling in twenty feet of water. The cowardly prince basked out, leaving his would-be victim* to drown, when her brother, who had followed the prince, suspecting his, evil designs, rushed through the trees and, without divesting himself of his heavy cowskin tunic, dived down to where his sister was lying on the bottom of the pool. Unable to lift her, and weighed down by his tunic, he would not let go and soon brother and sister were lying stark and still on the chalky bottom, while'Prince John and his base courtiers hurried off before the countryside was roused against him.