October 2025
Venue: Lenches Lakes, Evesham, Worcestershire
Website: http://www.Lencheslakes.co uk
Sat nav: WR11 4UB
Amenities:
*Free car parking
*Changing facilities
*Lifeguards present
*Toilets and showers
*Refreshments
Date: October 4th 2025
I am heading out to the Lenches Lakes today, along roads strewn with green and yellowing leaves and snapped-off willow branches, after the county endured the previous evening in the bad tempered company of Storm Amy.
First things first, ‘The Lenches’ is the collective term for a picturesque group of small villages located in the Vale of Evesham, Worcestershire, which include Sherrifs Lench, Ab Lench, Church Lench, Atch Lench and Rous Lench. The Lenches Lakes were used for many years as a popular spot for local fishermen, and have become a well-loved outdoor swimming venue, as well as a campsite and event space.
Strong gusts and heavy rain beating on the window woke me in the early hours of the morning, and I wondered how wild and woolly my swimming session later might be. My swim kit preparation doesn’t take long as I’ve usually found some towels and my swimming cozzie the night before. However, over the past few weeks, autumn water temperatures have slowly begun their inevitable decline, so I made sure to pack a couple more long-sleeved tops, providing some vital layering after my swim. I’m still wearing jeans, taking a dry robe and a flask of hot water to warm up with later, but I expect it won’t be long before I need to bring the thermal trousers and hot water bottle into service.
By 7.30 am, the winds were still strong, but the rain had stopped, the sky had calmed to a pale white-grey, and at 8.30 am I double-checked: kit, tow-float, car keys – let’s go!
The Lenches Lakes have been my go-to outdoor swim spot since I decided four years ago, to enrol in an afternoon’s Cold Water Introductory Session. It was held at the beginning of September, when the water temperature should be at its warmest. There must have been about ten or twelve of us that day, all new to cold water swimming (or new-ish), and wanting to find out if this could be something we’d love to get involved in.
We spent the first half of the afternoon listening to our instructors cover four main areas:
A swimmer’s physiological response to Cold Water;
Swimming good practice;
Safety measures, and
The health benefits associated with Cold Water swimming.
I was the only one who arrived in a wetsuit (with a sweater over the top, which somehow made it look like I did this sort of thing all the time). This was what we were meant to wear, wasn’t it? Well, it turned out that our tutor and owner of the venue, Amanda, thought that I’d be fine in just a swimming costume. Agh! Okay…
The theory part was hugely informative, particularly for many of us who had never tried this before. We soon had time to put our learning into practice under the watchful gaze of the safety team. The water temperature was around 23 or 24°C, comfortable for experienced outdoor swimmers. However, as most of us were complete newbies, we all made a terrible fuss, squealing ‘It’s freezing!!’ with huge, inexplicable smiles on our faces.
At the end of the session, we sat warming up outside the clubhouse, listening to Amanda’s summary of our learning experience that day. In the warm autumn sun, we drank tea and coffee, balancing large slices of delicious home-made cake precariously on shivering knees. It felt like the sort of experience you’d treat yourself to on holiday, but here we were, just a few miles from home, beginning a journey that would have a profound effect on our future well-being.
Four years on, I turned into Lenches Lakes at 8.55 am and drove slowly down through the campsite and onto the car parking area. The venue is wooded and landscaped beautifully, so you feel like you’ve found a woodland swimming oasis when you arrive. The lakes are surrounded by mature trees; pines, birch, oak, willow and alder, and the banks are edged with miscanthus grass, bulrushes, iris and lilies. There is a short, gently sloping path to the clubhouse – a triangular wooden building comprising of a welcome hub and (importantly!) a kitchen. It goes without saying that the cakes are legendary, but bacon sandwiches (and other breakfast favourites) are freshly prepared and available to order at every session.
I digress. I stood outside for a while waiting for my friend to arrive (she’d been delayed behind a tractor and was running a few minutes late). The lake is marked out for a 400m course for summer swimming, but as this was the first winter swim of the year, the course had been shortened to 200m circuits. Of course, swimming isn’t compulsory, so standing in the shoulder-high water around the entry point chatting with friends is also completely acceptable!
We got changed in the ‘warm room’. This is a terrific facility provided by Lenches Lakes, giving swimmers a heated environment in which to change comfortably and catch up with friends over a flask of tea. The underfloor heating is such a treat, particularly after a December or January swim, when, still shivering in thermals and several jumpers, I have been known to lie down on it.
There is a cooler, marquee-like area for changing too, and of course the grass bank in front of the clubhouse is a favourite spot in the summer months. Swimming hats and tow-floats on, my friend and I had a cursory glance at the board, which recorded a water temp of 14.5°C. Well, it doesn’t matter really, we’re going in anyway! There’s a short ramp and handrail as you enter the water, and if you are new to the Lakes, the lifeguards will make you aware of how the depth and underwater topography alters across the Lakes. It’s good to know where it’s possible to stand up sometimes and rest.
It was a very chilly entry! Brrr! It makes such a difference to your swim when the summer temperatures begin to slip away. Thanks to the tall trees skirting the bank, the strong winds didn’t reach the surface of the water, and I enjoyed a welcome calmness watching my breaststroke hands create small bow-waves ahead of me. The water smelled like the new rain that had replenished it earlier. Intermittent sun-shafts passed through the pine branches high up to the right of me whilst the high winds continued to roar through the tops of the willows to my left.
I think the swim lasted for about half an hour until we both felt a familiar trembling in our shoulders underwater and knew it was time to get out. No time to bob about in the shallows soaking up the sun. The dropping temperature dictates a swift exit and even swifter drying regime. Other swimmers were leaving the warm room to enter the lake.
‘How was it?’ they asked with trepidation.
We were still smiling and shivering. ‘Ah lovely, you’ll love it!’
