UKH

Anyone know if it's possible to swim from Calver to Chatsworth? No weirs or anything on the OS map to suggest it's impossible. Thanks 

I'm trying to think if I walked along any of the river banks between those two places (I've only swum in the Chatsworth 'park' area where everyone seems to go). I would imagine there are quite shallow patches you'd have to walk? There definitely are just north of Calver. Are you thinking about this time of year? I imagine its deeper at this time if a lot colder!

If you park at the car park by Chatsworth garden centre and walk down to the river its initially too shallow.  Follow it upstream for a couple of hundred meters and it get deep enough to swim but its not a huge stretch that you can use.

Better to enter the water just upstream of the bridge at the bottom of Froggatt hill.  I think its probably about 2km of swimable water heading upstream from here.

I should add as a caveat that I've no idea whether you have the right of access to this or not but its a common swimming spot so it appears that a blind eye is turned if there isn't permission.

Wouldn't a weir help, by backing the water up to a depth you could swim in?

I've swum at Chatsworth and I know people swim from that bridge at the bottom of Froggatt hill. I just fancied swimming from one to the other. It's good to know that its swimmable in the other direction from Froggatt, thanks

I'm planning on doing something like that when it's a bit warmer! I'm just daydreaming about future freedom to stop me going totally stir crazy........I bought the map for the 5 Sisters and Forcan Ridge the other day. No idea when I might go, I just fancied looking at them on a map and fantasizing

That would be the same can of worms as access by canoe/kayak.  I've no idea what reaction you'd get if you tried it and were spotted, but you'd be likely to meet a bit of hostility if you tried to paddle that stretch to say the least.  The OP would do well to be quick, quiet and stealthy!

On a practical note, I think there would certainly be stretches too shallow to swim in.  There are several spots like that downstream on the Darley Dale - Matlock Bath stretch of the Derwent where it's typically only about knee deep and would be rather dangerous to swim in when there's been enough rain to make it deeper.  (Access along that stretch for paddling isn't really contentious any more, there are even a couple of outdoor activity outfits who bring their clients rafting down there occasionally.)

There are places where treading on the river bed can be harmful to the wildlife, spawning fish in gravel beds and such - I've no idea if that's the case anywhere along there.

Well Sam, when you do get up there, drop me a line, as I regularly frequent the environs. I’ll tip you off on the best outings and even offer company on the hill if that’s welcome and I’m around.

Ah, I hadn't considered that, but I will do now, thanks

Will do, thanks!

I love a good bridge to bridge river swim. In medium rivers in medium flows it feels adventurous but not unsafe. 

Weirs rarely feel dangerous, you can hear them coming when you are in the calm deep pool before them - just swim to the bank and walk round. Water levels have to be fairly high before you would be sucked over. 

The Derwent is often a bit shallow in Summer apart from the Froggatt bit.

The Wye below Ashford is ace - a clear deep channel to the lake. 

The best are in the Lakes, really scenic and clearer waters. 

Also, does anyone know what swimming the Derwent below high tor is like? 

Is that bit of the Wye deep enough most of the time?

I don't know - It's looked deep enough from the bridge to high tor, and there is a kayak slalom course near there. 

Our posts crossed! I was asking how deep the Wye is below Ashford. Deepsoup said earlier on that the Derwent at Matlock Bath isn't very deep.

The slalom course itself probably wouldn't be much fun.  Not very deep, hence the relatively fast-flowing water, and lots of barely-submerged rocks with the potential to give you a bit of a beating.  (There's a good reason it's so rare to see a whitewater paddler not wearing a helmet.)

There are a couple of gentle rapids upstream a bit by the Artist's Corner car park, also shallow most of the time.  I think most of the km or so in between there and the slalom course would be ok, there's a widening in the river at the bend just downstream of Artist's Corner where it's nice and deep. 

I haven't been there for absolutely ages, I hear the amount of litter along the river banks lately is a bit depressing.

I've been swimming a few times in the slalom course.  I didn't intend to swim but my kayak skills let me down.    

Cheers, useful info.

Me too.
And might again.  I shudder to think what sort of state my 'skills' are in after the last year.

I haven't been in a little kayak for years.   I managed to get out in my big kayak a few times before lockdown and between lockdown 1 and 2 having had 3 years out with shoulder pains followed by unrelated wrist pains.  Ah well.  Maybe this summer.  

I've not been in a little one much the last few years either, other than the odd trip up to Tees Barrage to play on the artificial course for the day. 

I got lucky and had an amazingly good week and a bit (great conditions and great company) mostly playing in the tideraces around Anglesey in early September, and that was pretty much it for 2020.

I hope your troubles with shoulders and wrists are well behind you now.  Yeah, maybe the coming summer..

If we are allowed out to play in the coming summer I suspect everywhere remotely honey-potty will be rammed.  I'd love to spend some time down Pembrokeshire way and have a good non-paddling friend who's mildly desperate to walk the coastal path, but we might need to be a bit more imaginative than that to avoid the crowds.  Time to explore some of the less fashionable bits of the East coast of Scotland perhaps, something like that.

there is a weir at Baslow

I’m no swimmer, but her indoors is and has swum there. If it’s angling season, expect abuse as a minimum. One woman getting out after a swim was threatened by a man with a stick. 
 

As an onlooker, it seems to me that swimmers are facing the same access battles walkers and climbers did 80 years ago.

I paddled from Burbage Brook down to Baslow a few years ago and a lot of it was very shallow.

We were in packrafts which require very little water and it was touch and go as it's so shallow in places. I think you would be walking a lots.

The fishing folk tend to be quite put out as well. My understanding is that kayak access is up for debate so I just thanked them for their opinion that I was trespassing and passed along. Trudging along in the river probably isn't quite as ambiguous and I think they would be troublesome.

Hmmm. Maybe I'd be better off in the Wye as Dan Arkle suggests

or swim between Grindleford and Froggatt as Somerset Swede Basher suggests

I've made a note of that spot on the Wye for future reference too.

I don't know that stretch, but once you get to Froggatt you may as well carry on down to Calver Weir.  Little chance of any problems along there.