Doxey Pool: Jenny Greenteeth and the Dark Legend of The Roaches

Hidden in the quiet sweep of the Staffordshire Moorlands, high on the ridge of The Roaches in the Peak District, sits a place that looks far too ordinary to hold a legend. Doxey Pool is little more than a weather-beaten hollow filled with still water, barely fifteen by ten metres across, perched roughly five hundred metres above sea level. But locals will tell you its size is a distraction — a polite disguise for something much older, and much darker.

They say the pool is bottomless. Even in the driest summers, when streams shrink to threads and the moors crack beneath the heat, Doxey Pool stays full, shadowy, and strangely alive. The water never gives anything back. It simply waits. And according to local folklore, it’s waiting because someone — or something — lives beneath it.

That someone is Jenny Greenteeth, the malevolent water spirit said to lure travellers towards the edge with a soft, almost musical voice. Her hair twists like pondweed, her skin pale as mist, her hands always reaching upward. Walk too close and the calm surface turns predatory. Legends claim she drags her victims under, their final seconds swallowed by the cold, endless dark beneath the pool.

On fogbound days the place feels wrong in a way you can’t quite define. The wind whistles through the rocks, the landscape folds into silence, and even the birds avoid the water’s edge. Walkers often say they feel watched — or worse, invited. Stand there long enough and it’s easy to believe something is moving under the surface, just out of sight.

And yet, it’s beautiful. Wild. Still. There’s a tension here that feels older than the Peak District itself. Whether the legends are myth or memory, Doxey Pool lingers with you long after you’ve left, as if a piece of the place follows you home.

---

The Year 1949

In 1949, a local woman named Florence Pettit climbed The Roaches at dawn, planning a quiet swim before the day warmed. The moor was frozen in that early light — mist drifting low, the rocks slick with dew. When she reached Doxey Pool, its surface was perfectly still. She set down her things, stepped to the edge… and the water began to move.

Ripples spread, slow and deliberate, though the air was still. Then something rose — a shape tall enough to dwarf the surrounding rocks, nearly thirty feet high. Florence later described it as a creature made of the pool itself: a shifting column of green weeds and water pulled into a vaguely human form. It had a face, or the suggestion of one, and eyes that locked onto her with a cold, unsettling intelligence.

For several long heartbeats, it simply existed, towering above the water like a living silhouette. Then it collapsed silently back into the pool, leaving the surface clear and undisturbed, as if nothing had ever broken it.

Florence fled and never returned. Her story spread quickly, feeding the legend of Jenny Greenteeth and giving locals yet another reason to avoid the pool at dawn. Whether she saw a spirit, a hallucination, or something the moors aren’t ready to explain, no one knows. But walkers still slow their pace when the water ripples without warning.

---

World War II: The Wallabies of The Roaches

As if the folklore of Jenny Greenteeth wasn’t strange enough, The Roaches once had another mystery roaming its slopes — a wild colony of wallabies. During the Second World War, five Australian wallabies escaped from a private zoo at Roaches Hall. Somehow, against the cold, the altitude, and every law of common sense, they survived.

Those five became a thriving colony. Through the 1960s and 70s, locals reported dark shapes hopping through the mist, disappearing between the rocks like ghosts. By the 1970s, around fifty wallabies were said to live wild here — an Australian echo stitched into the English landscape.

Their numbers slowly declined, and the last confirmed sighting was in 2009. Even so, some walkers insist they’ve glimpsed a lone figure bounding across the heather at dawn. Whether they’re gone or simply hiding deeper in the moorland, the wallabies have slipped into the same folklore as Jenny Greenteeth — creatures out of place, yet strangely at home in this eerie, beautiful stretch of the Peak District.

---

Travel-Photography Summary

Doxey Pool is one of those rare locations where the landscape does half the storytelling for you. Perched high on The Roaches, the setting gives you a mix of sweeping moorland backdrops, jagged rock formations, and a perfectly still pool that reflects the sky like a sheet of black glass. It’s a brilliant spot for moody, atmospheric photography — especially on misty mornings when the fog curls around the rocks and the water turns mirror-dark.

The legend of Jenny Greenteeth adds a layer of tension you can lean into visually: close-ups of ripples breaking the surface, wide shots of the empty moorland, or low-angle frames that make the pool feel deeper and more unsettling. On brighter days, the contrast between the calm scenery and the story behind it gives you plenty of room for juxtaposition shots — serene landscapes with an underlying sense of dread.

The walk up The Roaches also offers endless photographic opportunities: dramatic gritstone edges, sweeping views across Staffordshire, and the kind of shifting weather that changes your light every few minutes. Even the remnants of the wallaby legend add a strange charm, giving you an excuse to chase those wild, lonely compositions that feel part folklore, part documentary.

For travel photography, it’s a place that rewards patience. Let the weather move, watch the light break through the mist, and capture that quiet eeriness the Peak District does so well. It’s atmospheric, remote, and exactly the kind of spot that leaves you with images — and feelings — that stay long after you’ve gone.

---

Useful Information:

• 🌎 Location: At the summit path of The Roaches gritstone ridge, Staffordshire Peak District.
• ℹ️ Details: A small, mysteriously full pool located on the highest path of The Roaches.
• ✨ Signature Feature: The myth and folklore surrounding the pool,
• 🏢 Central Landmark: Located between Hen Cloud and Roach End.
• 📍 Satnav layby parking along Roach Road, which gives access to the path
• 🧭 Coordinates: 53.156446, -1.995608
• 🗺️ Grid Reference: SK 0046 28 (Doxey Pool)
• 🌐 Official Link: Staffordshire Wildlife Trust – The Roaches

---

Related Posts: