Pool Bridge Farm: Camping Beside Four Wild Swimming Lakes near York

A family-run farm outside York with four wild swimming lakes, five lakeside saunas and a ten-acre campsite in the middle of them. Camping here includes the swimming, and the lakes are open access from the field you sleep in.

The stay

The Meadows Campsite sits at the heart of Pool Bridge Farm: ten acres of level grass bordered by mature oak trees, with no allocated pitches, so you pick your spot when you arrive. Tents, campervans and roof tents are all fine, and the only rule on spacing is to pitch at least 5m from anyone not in your booking. There are no electrical hookups, generators are not permitted, and there is no wifi. The site is naturally dark, which makes it good for stargazing on a clear night. Arrival at the campsite is between 1pm and 8pm, though you are welcome from 8am to use the lakes, and departure is by 11am. If it has been wet and you are in a campervan, ring ahead about where to park.

Swimming on site

Swimming is included throughout your stay, including all day on both your arrival and departure days, between 8am and 7:45pm. Camping also includes one pre-bookable two-hour SUP session a day on Q lake if you bring your own board. The farm is clear about the boundaries: there is strictly no access to the lakes or lakeside between 8pm and 8am unless you hold a ticket for a designated event, and because the lakes are open access from the campsite, all children must be closely supervised — for insurance purposes a child is anyone under 18 — with a maximum ratio of one adult to three children.

There are four lakes and five saunas, and community swim sessions you are welcome to join, most of them free: the Blue Tits meet at Monet Lake at 9:30am on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the Friday Swimmers at 9am on Fridays. Sauna and SUP sessions are released three months in advance and are booked separately after your camping booking.

Worth knowing

Visitors are not allowed on the campsite: friends have to buy a valid day ticket and meet you by the lakes during daytime opening hours. Bookings are non-refundable and non-transferable. The café is not open in the evenings, though there is often an ice cream van and sometimes a fish and chip van at weekends. Our page on the water itself is Pool Bridge Farm.

Bookings and full details: poolbridge.co.uk.

Horseshoe Lake at Pool Bridge Farm. Photo: Lajmmoore, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.