QE2 Country Park Lake (Ladyburn Lake) Wild Swimming

Ladyburn Lake is the 16-hectare water in Queen Elizabeth II Country Park, Ashington, on the north edge of town between the A197 and the A189, next to Woodhorn Museum. Satnav for the park is NE63 9AT; the museum is NE63 9YF. VO2Max Racing Events run the only swim you are allowed: Thursday evenings, a marked anti-clockwise course, safety craft on the water, wetsuit on. You go because Northumberland actually has a ticketed lake session with a £4 lakeside fee, and because this is the same shallow freshwater they use for the Woodhorn challenge swims. You also go knowing the 2026 Thursday block ran 7 May to 16 July and then stopped. After that date there is no weekly session. The council does not want freelance swimming. VO2Max are blunt: no swimming at any other time.

Getting in

Pre-register online from the VO2Max open-water page before you drive. Sign in from 17:45 at the VO2 desk by the lake. £4 on the night. Water from 18:00, when the safety boats are out, until 19:30. Sign out when you finish. Skip the desk on the way in or out and they treat it as an emergency. Wetsuit is compulsory. Bright hat recommended. There is a key board for your car keys.

As of 25 August 2026 the 2026 training dates were finished. Do not turn up on a random Thursday in late summer and expect a desk. The pattern is May to mid-July; watch the page for 2027. The Woodhorn Museum Open Water Swim Challenges were Saturday 4 July 2026: 3km at 13:30, 750m and 1.5km at 14:00, same lake. Those are race entries, not the Thursday session. Minimum age on 31 December 2026: 12 for 750m and 1.5km, 14 for 3km.

Under-15s (age on 31 December) need written parental consent and a nominated adult swimmer in the water with them, two children maximum per adult. They swim together. Mixed ability: a session-lead loop on the marked course, a longer-distance group, or your own swim inside the rules. New to open water — join the lead loop.

Free parking on site. Tarmac and grass paths around the lake. Woodhorn Museum is Wednesday–Sunday 10:00–16:00, daily in Northumberland school holidays, adult admission, under-18s free. It is next door. It is not the swim ticket.

The swim

Concrete jetty in front of the registration desk. Be careful getting in. Marker buoys to your left, anti-clockwise. They call it warm and shallow; that is relative to a North Sea harbour, not a spa. Exit points around the lake are very shallow. If you want out mid-session, tell the desk. In trouble: shout, one arm up then to 90 degrees, repeat. Roll on your back — the wetsuit floats you until the boat arrives.

Training is at your own risk. Download their safety PDF and the swim map from the VO2Max swim page and read both. Safety brief at the desk from 18:00. Zone 3 is their kit partner if you still need a suit.

Organised windsurf, canoe and coarse fishing share the park in season. No motorised craft. No remote-control boats. The site was Woodhorn and North Ashington Wood colliery ground. Woodhorn Colliery closed in 1981; the museum opened in 1989. You are swimming a country-park lake on a former pit, not a private membership quarry.

Worth knowing

This is not a year-round band-and-app lake. It is a ten-week Thursday evening plus the July challenge swims if they run them. If you want a North East membership water most weeks, this is the wrong pin.

Do not treat Ladyburn as a wild-swim shoreline on a Sunday. Individuals are not encouraged. The session exists because VO2Max put boats on the water. When they are not there, you are not swimming.