‘To feel the water’s balmy softness at every stroke was a kind of heaven’

Inspired by Roger Deakin’s wild swimming classic ‘Waterlog’, Daniel Start gets a ‘frog’s eye view’ of Britain at 10 favourite locations from the book

Wild swimming is experiencing a coming of age, with all its pleasures and pain. During this spring’s record heatwave and the first, tentative easing of lockdown in May, more people visited their local riverbanks than at any other time in history. As al fresco swimming became one of the first pursuits to be sanctioned, people united in seeking out countryside close to home and discovering the life-affirming, immune-strengthening balm of natural bathing.

Yet many riverbanks remain fenced off and some places were overrun. Our waters must be treated with respect, so education as well as access needs to improve. The right to swim in rivers is enshrined in Magna Carta, and many believe reservoirs should have open beaches, too, as they do on the Continent. Our vast local network of riverbanks and lakes – where our great-grandparents went to bathe – are a national treasure.

One man who recognised this was the late Roger Deakin, whose wild swimming memoir Waterlog was published 21 years ago. His mission was to set out from the moat encircling his house in Suffolk to swim through the British Isles – and his quirky “frog’s eye view” of Britain became an instant classic.

Waterlog liberated and inspired a generation of closet wild swimmers previously condemned as cold-water subversives. I, for one, was entranced and promptly resigned from my office job at a London council to follow in Deakin’s wake and photograph my own directory of traditional swims.

Here, in Deakin’s memory – and as thanks for changing the course of my life – is my guide to 10 of his favourite swimming spots, taken from the book. We should protect them, respect them – and swim in them.

RIVER WAVENEY, SUFFOLK When Deakin wasn’t swimming around his moat, he was most likely found here. “With its secret pools and occasional sandy beaches, the Waveney is full of swimming holes, diving stages improvised from wooden pallets, dangling ropes, and upturned canoes pulled up on the bank,” he wrote. The river is also frequented by otters, and possessive fishermen, but Outney Common in Bungay has easy access. Or seek out the secret stretch on Limbourne Common by Wortwell Mill.

How: a mile south of Homersfield on Mendham Lane, find the footpath on the right after IP20 0NS, just before Valley Farm. Coordinates: 52.4129, 1.3605.

GRANTCHESTER MEADOWS, CAMBRIDGESHIRE

Deakin’s research for the book took him back to his alma mater, Cambridge University, to pore over maps at the library, or sidle off to swim in the Cam at Grantchester. In her day, Virginia Woolf christened the Cambridge wild swimmers the “neo-pagans” and on hot summer afternoons it can seem as if little has changed since Rupert Brooke was a student here, commuting to and from his studies in a canoe, holding camping parties and swimming naked at night with the young Bloomsbury Group.

How: There are more than two miles of meadows and swimming from

Sheep’s Green down to the Orchard Tea Gardens (CB3 9ND). Coordinates: 52.1907, 0.1046.

CROPTHORNE MILL, FLADBURY, WORCESTER, AVON

One of Waterlog’s most memorable families lived on a mill island accessible only by punt. The children would dive from their top-floor bedroom window into the Avon below and “people lolled half-submerged along the top of the weir, reading or sunbathing, while others paddled themselves about the river in coracles, swam, dived, or just sat about in bathing costumes. It was a water rats’ club straight from the pages of The Wind in the Willows.” There is still good swimming here, and a warm tribal welcome. How: Access the river above the weir from the footpath and the tiny green on the south edge of the village signed Mill Bank. Coordinates: 52.1122, -2.0051.

RIVER WINDRUSH, BURFORD, OXFORDSHIRE The Windrush is the most perfectly English of rivers – shallow and clear, bouncing off its gravel beds as it winds through a picture postcard landscape. It was here that Deakin proclaimed his “Third Way” of swimming: jump in at one end of a meander until you are propelled almost back to where you started, to jump in all over again. There are ancient pollarded willows and, if fishermen deter you, explore the river footpath downstream from Asthall instead.

How: Take Witney Street from Burford and after a mile (OX18 4DR) find the footpath on the left. Coordinates: 51.8008, -1.6175.

FARLEIGH HUNGERFORD SWIMMING CLUB, SOMERSET

“I arrived in the midmorning on an enchanting south-facing grassy hillside, swooping down to the riverside through a sheltered little water meadow almost within sight of the old castle at Farleigh,” wrote Deakin. Occupying a prime weir-side spot on the Frome, this is England’s oldest surviving river swimming club, founded in the 1930s. It’s a great place to meet free spirits. Camping and cream teas are available at adjacent Stowford Farm. How: Day membership costs £2.

Descend into the village from the A36 (signed Trowbridge), over two bridges, then enter the field immediately on the right (BA14 9LH). Coordinates: 51.3179, -2.2810.

RIVER DART, DARTMOOR It was here that Deakin began to question his entire project. “I had naively imagined bouncing along the lanes of England in some open-topped bus, bursting with friends, their towels and costumes hung out to dry like flags in the breeze, and me at the wheel like Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday”, he wrote. Instead, of course, his friends were all far too busy with their own lives – an all too familiar scenario with my own book projects. But a gaspingly cold dip in the West Dart River by the stone bridge at Hexworthy revitalised Deakin’s mood, as every swim does, and the Dart remains a magical place.

How: Try popular Spitchwick Common