Crowdy Reservoir, lake in the United Kingdom
Crowdy Reservoir is a water body in Cornwall situated on Bodmin Moor, spanning roughly 115 acres. The water is surrounded by gentle hills and open moorland, with simple paths and viewing areas that allow visitors to move around while keeping the natural landscape intact.
The site was originally a wetland called Crowdy Marsh, feared as a dangerous and forbidding place during the 1800s. A dam was constructed in the 1970s to transform the moorland into a water supply reservoir for the surrounding towns and farms.
The reservoir sits on Bodmin Moor, a landscape connected to the earliest human settlement in Cornwall. Visitors can sense this connection to the past while walking the shoreline, where ancient stone tools occasionally appear, linking the place to people who lived here thousands of years ago.
The paths around the reservoir are mostly flat and easy to walk, making them suitable for visitors of all ages. Comfortable shoes, weatherproof clothing, and water are recommended, as conditions can change quickly and the trails are exposed to the elements.
When water levels drop during seasonal changes, ancient flint tools occasionally surface along the shoreline, left behind by hunter-gatherers more than 10,000 years ago. These chance discoveries offer glimpses into Cornwall's earliest human history and reveal that people valued this landscape long before the dam was built.
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