inscribed and dated "Gormire Lake Aug 17 1875" and signed with initials "LWT"
Toma nd Laura Taylor and thence by descent
Gormire Lake is a natural lowland lake that lies at the foot of Whitestone Cliff, a western escarpment of the Hambleton Hills in the North York Moors National Park. The lake is 1.2 miles (2 km) east of the village of Sutton-under-Whitestonecliffe in North Yorkshire, England. Gormire has no inflow or major outflow of water. It is thought to be fed by an underground spring and drained by a limestone channel so the water finds a way out through the base of the cliff face to the east of the lake. The lake is also known as the White Mere, Lake Gormire, or more simply, Gormire. The name Gormire translates as filthy swamp.
The lake was formed over 20,000 years ago by glacial erosion. When an ice sheet pushed its way between the Pennines and the North York Moors, it bulldozed the soft earth away and carved the cliffs at Whitestone and in turn the mud left over stopped the water's egress and formed the glacial lake. Gormire Lake was a result of this process and is fourth largest of the natural lakes in Yorkshire (the other three being Hornsea Mere, Malham Tarn and Semerwater). The lake was first designated as an Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in 1954; however, in 1985 the area surrounding the lake was incorporated into the SSSI status with the new area being 133.5 acres (54.03 ha). The new designation incorporates the broadleaf woodlands of Garbutt Wood which encroach right up to the water's edge.
The lake is the setting of several myths; one being of a knight known as Sir Harry Scriven who conned the Abbot of Rievaulx Abbey into letting him ride his horse (a white mare, the so called derivation of White Mare Cliff (another name for Whitestonecliff)). The knight and the abbot rode on from an inn and as they did so, it turned into a race. The abbot then changed into the devil, which caused such panic in the knight that he couldn't stop the horse and himself plunging into Gormire Lake from the clifftop. The 'devil' was then seen to jump into the lake after them and the boiling effect of the devil in the water is what is said to have caused the darkness of the lake to this day.
Other myths are that the lake is bottomless, that the bottom of the lake is the entrance to hell, there is submerged village underneath the water and that a goose once disappeared in the lake to emerge in a well at Kirkbymoorside stripped of all its feathers.
Gormire Lake is popular with wild swimmers as it has no streams feeding it so there is very little current and the waters are described as being 'warm'. Swimmers have reported that it is seething with leeches. The Times named the lake as one of the 20 best lakes and rivers in Britain for wild swimming.
Laura Wilson Barker (6 March 1819 – 22 May 1905), was a composer, performer and artist, sometimes also referred to as Laura Barker, Laura W Taylor or "Mrs Tom Taylor".
She was born in Thirkleby, North Yorkshire, third daughter of a clergyman, the Rev. Thomas Barker. She studied privately with Cipriani Potter and became an accomplished pianist and violinist. As a young girl Barker performed with both Louis Spohr and Paganini. She began composing in the mid-1830s - her Seven Romances for voice and guitar were published in 1837. From around 1843 until 1855 she taught music at York School for the Blind. During this period some of her compositions - including a symphony in manuscript, on 19 April 1845 - were performed at York Choral Society concerts.
On 19 June 1855 she married the English dramatist, critic, biographer, public servant, and editor of Punch magazine Tom Taylor. Barker contributed music to at least one of her husband's plays, an overture and entr'acte to Joan of Arc (1871), and provided harmonisations as an appendix to his translation of Ballads and Songs of Brittany (1865).
Her other works include the cantata Enone (1850), the violin sonata A Country Walk (1860), theatre music for As You Like It, (April 1880), Songs of Youth (1884), string quartets, madrigals and solo songs. Her choral setting of Keats's A Prophecy, composed in 1850, was performed for the first time 49 years later at the Hovingham Festival in 1899. The composer was present.
Several of Barker's paintings hang at Smallhythe Place in Kent, Ellen Terry's house.
Barker lived with her husband and family at 84 Lavender Sweep, Battersea. There were two children: the artist John Wycliffe Taylor (1859–1925), and Laura Lucy Arnold Taylor (1863–1940). The Sunday musical soirees at the house attracted many well-known attendees, including Lewis Carroll, Charles Dickens, Henry Irving, Charles Reade, Alfred Tennyson, Ellen Terry and William Makepeace Thackeray.
Tom Taylor died suddenly at his home in 1880 at the age of 62. After his death, his widow retired to Porch House, Coleshill in Buckinghamshire, where she died on 22 May 1905, aged 86.