Outdoor Swimming: Lacock

We'd heard that there was a swimming location in Lacock for as long as we've been outdoor swimming, but I guess we were a bit nervous about trying to find a location based just on information we found on the web - which mainly revolved around the words 'beach' and 'rapids'. Especially as the Wild Swim Map had the location for the Lacock swim near Malmesbury, the wrong side of the M4 by quite a few miles.

I had a good look on Google maps and found that there was a 'path' through the field that looked to be the right location based on the sources we'd found online. So in the end we thought, 'What the heck', and went to see if we could find it.

We parked at the National trust car park and walked over the bridge and into the field over the stone stile.

The bridge over the river.

There were cows in the field, but they weren't too interested in us - which always gives me some relief. I'm better with cows than I used to be, but not as good as I could be. We followed the 'path' that followed the river and we saw a beach mentioned that was for the cows. Shortly afterwards we heard the rapids. The online directions that we had been looking at were spot on as we can across a smaller beach and gently made it down the bank to the water.

Not too cold!

We had a lovely swim and could really feel the flow of the river. In the end I stayed in the same spot just throwing out enough strokes to keep me stationary. Lucy was adventurous and was swimming about like she owned the place!

Looking upstream.

After a while we saw a couple of lads up on the bank. Then a family came by in a canoe, which was novel.

Lucy swimming like a boss!

We saw that the lads were getting ready for a BBQ. So we decided to make our way out of the water and warm up with a cup of tea from our trusty flask; leaving the increasing number of lads to have the spot to themselves.

Warming up with a cuppa.

As we were walking back up to the stile, we pass a group of lasses around the same age as the lads. I guess they were going to have a fun afternoon frolicking - ah the joys of being young teenagers.

It's actually a really lovely spot. The roof of Lacock Abbey can be seen when swimming and when you're back up on the banks there are lovely views of the surrounding area. It's great to have yet another use for the tiny village of Lacock.

Coming back to Internet-Land I made a new swimming location for Lacock and asked the site maintainers to remove the one near Malmesbury, which I see they have done.

If you'd like to visit this spot, click here. Already been here? It'd be great to hear your experiences in the comments.