AN 18-month old baby girl tragically drowned in a pond in her back garden on Banbury Road, St Annes on May Day.

The toddler, Ruby Wednesday Key, was found in one of the garden's two ponds -- one of which contains carp -- around 6pm on Monday.

She was immediately taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital by ambulance where strenuous attempts to resuscitate the child failed. A post-mortem was later carried out by a Home Office pathologist who confirmed the cause of death as drowning.

The parents of the toddler, Nicola and Graham Key, who neighbours say have two older children, were extremely distraught and far too upset to discuss the tragedy yesterday.

A neighbour on St Thomas's Road, whose house backs on to the garden where Ruby died, said the whole neighbourhood was deeply shocked and upset by the incident and was full of sympathy for the family.

She went on: "They really are a lovely, happy family and my husband and I are both feeling for them all. We have a grandson the same age as Ruby and it is unimaginable -- it must all seem like a bad dream to them.

"The children are always supervised and both of them are great and caring parents. They have just had a playroom put on the back and I used to constantly hear the children giggling and playing together.

"I think the family have lived there for about six years and I know they had the two ponds built after moving into the property. All their children are very bonny and Ruby looked a lovely child.

"I would just like them to know that myself and the whole neighbourhood are at a complete loss for words and are thinking of them at this terrible time."

Police are continuing their investigations into the accident.

TRAGEDY: The house in Banbury Road, St Annes