On dark and stormy nights, locals will tell the tale of an entire village lurking in the murky depths of Burrator Reservoir in Dartmoor National Park near Plymouth, Devon. "On a quiet night you can still hear the church bells chime," they'll say with the flicker of an eyelid and much ominous pointing of fingers.

The story goes that when construction of the dam was complete, a village at the heart of what would become the reservoir was abandoned and the water rushed in - concealing it forever in the depths of the lake. Sadly, the reality of this urban legend is less 'submerged' and more 'slightly soggy', the Plymouth Herald reports.

Birmingham University's Professor Bob Stone and the Department of Electronic, Electrical & Systems Engineering's Human Interface Technologies completed an underwater survey of Burrator Reservoir last year. Sadly though, they found no evidence of a church.