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Wild Swimming -
exploring Britain'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? Britain’s 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....  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. 
 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?
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.
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 2008Over 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 
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 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  |
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