Find wild swimming by county
Every county where we’ve published a researched spot.
New wild swimming spots
Lakes, rivers, tarns and tidal pools worth the cold.
How to find wild swimming near you
Three ways in, depending on what you already know.
From your nearest city
City pages list every researched spot within a stated radius of the centre, nearest first, with the mileage and the direction on each one. They cross county lines, because water does.
Browse citiesFrom the county
Every county with a published spot has a page listing all of them, ordered by how far you walk in from the car, with the water type, the parking and who each one suits.
Browse countiesFrom the kind of swim
If what you want is a waterfall pool, a proper walk in, or somewhere you can reach by train, start from that and let the county sort itself out.
Browse kinds of swimIs wild swimming legal in the UK?
It depends where you are, and the answer is genuinely different in each nation.
Scotland
Yes, responsibly
The Land Reform Act and the Scottish Outdoor Access Code give a right of responsible access to most inland water. You can swim, and the code sets out what responsible means.
England and Wales
No general right to swim
Most spots are used by long custom rather than by law, some sit on land where the owner permits it, and a few are banned outright by byelaw. The difference matters, so we record which one applies at every spot.
What we publish
Where swimming is prohibited, we leave the spot out. A page here is not permission, and it is not a recommendation to ignore a sign, but it will tell you who owns the water and what position they take.
How we research a spot
Fewer pages, each one actually checked.
01
Official sources first
Every page starts as a research pass over the records: bathing water classifications and river gauges from the Environment Agency, Ordnance Survey mapping, council byelaws, National Park access guidance, water company data, and the local swimming community’s own accounts.
02
Written once, then checked again
What comes back is written up in one voice and checked against the sources a second time before anything is published. Where a claim matters, the page names who says so.
03
Gaps stay visible
A fact we could not confirm reads “Not recorded” or “Check locally”. It is never quietly rounded into a yes, because the gaps are the part you would most want to know about.
Before you swim
Three things that decide most British open water, whichever spot you pick.
Cold water
Go in slowly, come out early
British open water sits in single figures for much of the year, which is cold enough to take your breath the moment you get in. Let your breathing settle before you swim anywhere, and come out while you are still comfortable rather than once you have stopped feeling it.
After rain
Wait for a settled dry spell
Rivers rise and cloud up long after the rain has stopped, and they carry whatever came off the fields and out of the sewage overflows with them. A settled dry spell is both the better swim and the cleaner water.
No lifeguards
Find the way out before you get in
Almost none of this water is watched. Tell someone where you are going, swim with other people where you can, and pick your exit first. It is the part people leave until last and the part that decides how the swim ends.
