The Lake
Virginia Water Lake lies within Windsor Great Park. It was created from a body of water of the same name: originally little more than a stream, which existed from at least the 17th century and may well be named after Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen.
The lake is mostly in Surrey, though the western extremities are in the civil parishes of Old Windsor and Sunninghill and Ascot in Berkshire.
Recently the shores of the lake have been used for lakeside scenes in the Harry Potter films. The lake is also the site of the British record capture of a pike, weighing 58 lb 5oz.
During World War II, the lake was drained, as its recognisable shape was thought likely to provide enemy guidance at night to Windsor and to important military targets in the area.
Read more about this topic: Virginia Water
Famous quotes containing the word lake:
“A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. The fluviatile trees next the shore are the slender eyelashes which fringe it, and the wooded hills and cliffs around are its overhanging brows.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humility; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountain-head.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)