A MYSTERY hole found under the lake at historic Croome Park, near Severn Stoke, might not be a bomb crater as was first supposed.

Uncovered during recent dredging by the National Trust, it was thought to have been caused by a Second World War bomb, dropped after a raid on Midlands targets.

But Jill Tovey, archivist to the Croome Estate Trust, believes it is more likely to have been a clay pit providing material for an 18th Century brick works.

"When I first heard about the crater, I wondered if it could have been a clay pit, because there were quite a few around the area," she said.

"They made bricks locally and dug the clay from a piece of common or waste ground at Saggie Moore, which is the site of the present lake at Croome."

Consulting an archive book of contracts and leases, Ms Tovey found a record of 1713 detailing an order for 100,000 "good, well wrought and well burnt stamp bricks" from Saggie Moore, Croome D'Abitot.

"The fourth Earl of Coventry had aspirations for improving Croome Court, according to designs drawn up with the help of his friend, Henry Bighton, of Warwick.

"It seems he was planning quite a major alteration to the house. The 1713 design was rather grand and flamboyant, with a formal garden," she said.

The bricks were ordered, but the scheme does not appear to have been completed and in 1750 Lord Deerhurst, later to become the sixth Earl, brought in Lancelot "Capability" Brown to redesign the house and garden.

A map of that time describes the lake area as Seggie Meere, implying it was a wet and muddy place.

"It shows part of the Croome river, but there was no lake. I deduce from this that when Brown came along it was a boggy area containing clay pits, an ideal place for a lake," said Ms Tovey.

The work that brought all this to light involved removing years of accumulated silt, reeds and vegetation, aiming to restore the lake to its 18th Century clarity.