A huge reservoir in England's smallest county, now one of the country's best places for birdwatching, sailing and an easy day by the water
Rutland Water was built in the 1970s, flooding a broad valley to store water for the growing towns of the East Midlands, and it is one of the largest man-made lakes in England. It sits in Rutland, the smallest historic county in the country, which makes the scale of the thing all the more surprising when you first see it. Two long arms of water reach out around the Hambleton peninsula, with the little village of Hambleton left on its own hill in the middle.
The reservoir is best known now for its birds. A nature reserve covers the shallow western end, and ospreys were brought back here in the 1990s to become the first breeding pairs in England for generations; you can watch them in summer from the hides at the Lyndon Nature Reserve. It is also a busy sailing and watersports centre, and a good, mostly level cycle path runs much of the way round the shore.
Sticking up out of the water on the southern side is Normanton Church, half-drowned when the valley was flooded and saved by banking up the ground around it; it houses a small museum now. There are car parks with cafés at Sykes Lane and Whitwell, bikes to hire, and Barnsdale Gardens, the old Gardeners’ World garden, just up the road. Oakham, the county town, is a couple of miles west.
