Home
Email
list sign-up
The
books
France
Coast
(UK)
Original (UK)
Wild
Swim Map
Lakes
and Rivers South-West
South-East
Wales
Central-East
Lakes
& Dales
Scotland
& North
Secret
Coves
Cornwall
& Devon
South
& East
Wales
North
Scotland
Outdoor Swimming
Water
quality
River swimming
safety
Sea
swimming Safety
Coasteering
Wildlife
& nature
Access
& law
Adventure
Directions
Families
& Fun
Skinny
Dipping!!
Articles
A brief histroy...
Health
benefits
Policy
& practice
More reading
Links
Movies
Contact
us |
|
Wild
Swimming -
exploring the world's outdoor swimming places

On
a hot
summer day, what could be
more refreshing than slipping into the cool, clear waters of a secret
lake? And what could be more exciting than plunging into a hidden
waterfall? Our rivers, lakes and waterfalls, coves, caves
and beaches, are
cleaner, safer and
more accessible than at any
time in living memory and the
health benefits of a wild swim or natural dip are also now well
known, so take the plunge and dip in....

Wild Swimming France
is our
latest book. Swim beneath the great
châteaux of the Loire and plunge into the azure-blue pools of
Provence. Relax in the secret hot springs of the Pyrenees and discover
the unspoilt crater lakes of the Mont-Dore. France has one of the most
diverse and magnificent landscapes in Europe, with a cuisine and
culture to match. Its rivers, lakes and waterfalls are sparkling clean
and its summers are reliably hot – and it’s all
just a
train ride away.
The Wild Swimming App
is ideal if you’re exploring swimming spots in the UK this
summer. The
new Wild Swimming App (iPhone and Ipad) has just won Sunday Times
Travel App of the week and provides all the content from original Wild
Swimming book. Priced at £4.99, the app comes with bundled
new
photography and brand new 1:25,000 OS topo maps, plus full search and
‘locate me’ functions. You’ll never need
to search
for a signal out in
the sticks as it comes pre-loaded with 100MB worth of data. Find it on Itunes.

Join
your local Facebook group
Why not join our main Wild Swimming Club
Facebook page, or follow us on Twitter.
Many people have asked how they can
network with local wild
swimmers, to share places,
arrange outings and generally
organise for fun this
summer. We’ve formed seven regional Facebook groups. These
provide a
discussion
forum, as well as a general local noticeboard for making announcements,
arranging events or posting photos. Join as many or as few as you
want.
Wild
Swimming Coast. Imagine
a summer of
swimming, exploring by the sea and discovering secret beaches and sandy
coves, smugglers’ caves and deep lagoons. Britain’s
beautiful coastline is studded with hidden places to swim, snorkel and
sunbathe... The companion volume
to the original best selling Wild Swimming book. View a sample of Wild
Swimming
Coast here or buy
a signed copy (£14.95).
Alice Roberts goes Wild
Swimming on
BBC4 (9pm, Tuesday 2nd August 2010),
following in the footsteps of the late Roger Deakin. The programme
includes swimming in the underground rivers of the Yorkshire Dales with
us.
BBC4 programme homepage.
Give
us rights! Campaign for wild
swimming in Wales
Several
campaigns are under way to enshrine the legal right to wild
swim in natural waters in England and Wales. Scotland already has a
legal right of access to waters - a water right to roam. See 'Your Freedom' Wild Swimming petition to get involved in Engaldn
or catch up on
the progress with Welsh Assembly
inquiry. The latter really needs your support as a decision will be
made in
September. We're encouraging people - particularly those resident in
Wales or who visit Wales - to write to Assembly Members
explaining why voluntary codes do not work, and why wild
swimming
is so important. The Outdoor Swimming Society have
drafted a possible letter
and will help you find the address of your
AM.
Is
your local swimming river
clean? Our new Quick Guide.
Do
you know the
quality of water in your local river? The
Environment Agency's newly updated
interactive map makes checking this easy. See our new simple guide
to checking water quality. What grade does your river receive?
River
quality and WWF's work
You can also see the new report from WWF on the state of
t he River Thames
and the threats it
faces from climate
change. It's still one
of the cleanest rivers of its size in Europe but climate
change is creating new challenges and too much water is still being
abstracted. Why not find out more about the work of UK
environmental organisations working to keep our freshwaters fresh?
Check out WWF's
work in the UK and
the UK Blueprint
for
Water coalition. Why not also
find out about the work of the
UK Association of River Trusts?
Google
Map now easier
We’ve changed the settings on the
Wild Swimming Google Map to make it easier to add places. You
can find it here.
We've added a little selection from the Wild Swimming book but
it’s
mainly a place for
new outdoor swims. Click 'Edit' to begin adding your swims.
Use 'Rich text' to add links to photos.
Alternatively email us at swims AT wildswimming.co.uk and
we’ll
upload
them for you.
Find
a secret wild swim
Britain
is bubbling with glorious little river and lake swmiming
holes, all of your own. You can find some of the top highlights in our online overviews
and on the wild swim map
(see links to the left). But how about finding your very own secret
place?
Look for
clues on a map: why not follow a river along its
length? Many have footpaths that follow the bankside. Buy an Ordnance
Survey
map of your area (Purple Landrager 1:50,000 or Orange Explore
1:25,000), or use www.multimap.co.uk
online. They will identify all the water features in your
area. Weirs are marked and swimming is often popular in the pools above
or below.
Bridges sometimes cross sections where the river naturally narrows and
deepens,
so examine these. Bends are always good, as the river shallows to a
beach on
the inside, but deepens to a pool on the outside. Legal access is
important so
also examine footbridges, riverside footpaths, road fords and other
places
where a right of way comes into contact with the water.
In
highland areas look for any mountain lake and examine waterfalls, where
marked. Read on
for online sources and more tips.
Robson
Green's Wild
Swimming Adventure is
a brand new two part
series from
ITV1 visting
several
places from the Wild
Swimming books.
Part one is on at 9pm on Tuesday 8th December 2009 on
ITV1. Robson
Green was inpsired by
the memories of his late father and tackles some impressive wild swims
during the show. You can find out more about the places he visits on
our Robson
Green Wild Swimming
pages.
The
Big Jump! Sunday 9th July 2010
The 8th July saw European
Rivers
Network annual river swimming
day. “Everybody
will swim in the
rivers the same day, at
the same hour, in all the European rivers, from the sources and the
glaciers to
the oceans”. It's
all in aid of raising awareness about
river water quality. We were at Hatchmere
taking a plunge with RALSA.
Wild
Swimming on the Radio. Daniel
Start joined John McCarthy
on Radio Four's Excess Baggage
to talk about the
wild places of Brit ain
for an outdoor swim. You can
also hear more about wild swimming on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire
and BBC Herefordshire and Worcestershire. You'll find an interview with BBC
Radio
Scotland 'Highlands and Islands' here. Updated
16th June 2008
Wild
Swimming in the papers too - Over the
last few months wild swimming
has featured in the Telegraph
and as the cover story
in the Sunday Times.
Read about the top places to swim and why outdoor swimming is great for
all the family. Skinny dipping at one of our suggested wild swim spots
- Galleny Falls - was also nominated as one of the 100 most romantic
things to do in the Guardian.
More in the Scotsman
too. Posted 15th May 2008
Swimming
at the Hay Festival
Comedian Dom Joly and 25 nutty wild swimmers joined us in tropical
tornado conditions to swim in the River Wye on Monday 26th May. Dom's
wild swim sketch was screened on the 'Hay-on-Sky' TV show. Despite the
rain
there was great elation and euphoria. The
Hay
Literary Festival
is the largest literary
festival in the world and earlier that morning Daniel Start spoke
about ’Wild Swimming’ on
Start the Day at the
Guardian stage (together
with Harry
Bingham on ‘This
Little Britain’ and Tim Fitzhigham who rowed across the
channel
in a
bath). You can download a
brochure for the continuing 9-day event here. For
more on Hay Warren and the long tradition of wild swimming at Hay see
the Upper
Wye
chapter from the book. Updated
28th May 2008.
'Wild
Swim' by
Kate Rew and Guardian publishers. Wild
Swim by Kate Rew and Guardian publishing follows rapidly in our
wet footsteps and comes from Kate Rew's Outdoor
Swimming Society (OSS).
This has good coverage
of outdoor swimming pools
and sea swims, making this a great complement to our own Wild Swimming
book (dedicated to rivers, lakes and waterfalls...) This is a
hardback coffee-table book with
atmospheric photos of moody watery expanses (so don't expect
quite
so much in the way of handy grid refs and regional
maps). This book
will appeal
to anyone who loves a wild place, as well as to the hardier swimmer or
triathlete who enjoys a longer swim. You can read more here
about the (OSS) Outdoor
Swimming Society. Updated
28th May 2008
Get
the latest styles - and be pratical too - with Speedo's new range
At
Wild Swimming the lads are particularly keen on Speedo's new Aquashorts
because
they nice and compact (but not too compact!) and dry out very quickly.
They're perfect for a day out adventuring becasue they don't weigh much
when
they're
wet. Remember a little plastic bag to carry them home in.
There are plenty of groovy swimsuits for the lasses too. Or
why
not buy an underwater mask so you can look for shoals of trout or
search for salmon. Speedo
International Limited


|
|
|