One of the very few natural lakes in the Yorkshire Dales, set in quiet Raydale and wrapped in an old legend of a drowned village
The Yorkshire Dales has almost no natural lakes — the limestone drains too freely — which makes Semerwater a rarity, a broad sheet of water in the quiet side-valley of Raydale, left behind by a glacier at the end of the last ice age. It is one of the largest natural lakes in the Yorkshire Dales, second only to Malham Tarn. Local legend tells of a drowned town beneath the water, sunk as punishment after its people turned away a poor traveller, and a few big glacial boulders on the shore have picked up stories of their own. A road runs right down to the water’s edge, so you can park, picnic and launch a boat, and it draws sailing and paddling in summer. Bainbridge is the nearest village, a couple of miles north in the main dale.
