How to discover your own secret places

l To find your own wild places, seek out the Ordnance Survey (OS) orange Explorer map series (1:25,000 scale). This shows rights of way in green, and open access land in an orange tint. Iron-age earthworks are marked, along with Pre-Roman ruins, as are caves, crags and gorges. The ‘Non-Coniferous trees’ marking is often a clue to ancient forest.

l For swimming, find places where public footpaths intersect with a river at footbridges, fords and banks. On smaller rivers, looks for waterfalls and weirs (marked by a straight line across the river) which create deep sections above, and pools below. On medium-size rivers, examine the bends where the inside often creates a beach while the outside deepens into a pool.

l The National Trust and English Heritage have online maps of their properties and land; it’s best to search for the places that are free to access and open all hours, as these are often the least developed and least busy.

l For a deeper search, use decimal latitude longitudes to easily check interesting places on Google Maps, cross checking with streetview or satellite view. Geograph.org.uk also has a huge database of images. Find free OS mapping on Bing.com and Streetmap.co.uk and there’s good additional information on OpenStreetMap.org.

Daniel Start is author of Wild Swimming: Hidden Beaches, and editor of the award-winning Wild Guide series, covering thousands of hidden places across different regions of the UK. wildthingspublishing.com