One of the genuine pleasures of staying at Hole Mill is having a large, deep, plant-filtered organic swimming pond about thirty paces from the kitchen door. Guests who arrive nervous about cold water tend to leave swimming twice a day. But beyond the pond, East Devon has some of the best wild swimming spots in England — clear chalk-bottomed sea, tidal pools, river crooks where the water is so still it feels like a mirror. This is our short, practical guide to the spots within an easy drive of Hole Mill, plus a few notes on doing it safely.

Hole Mill's organic swimming pond

We will start at home, because for most of our guests the pond becomes their favourite swim of the holiday. It is a 12 m × 8 m natural pond with a sandy diving jetty, a deep area in the middle (around 2 m), and a regeneration zone planted with native marsh marigolds, water mint, irises and rushes. There is no chlorine, no liner — just plants, microbes and minerals doing the filtering, and a small low-energy pump cycling the water through a gravel reed bed.

The water is clear all summer. Dragonflies, water boatmen, the occasional newt. In June you can swim through banks of yellow flag iris reflected on the water. We tested the pond water through the season and it consistently came back well within drinking water standards for bacteria — cleaner than most municipal pools.

Practical: it is private to guests only, so you can swim at any hour. There is a wood-fired sauna twenty paces from the pond which we light on request. Sauna, plunge, sauna, plunge — it is the best winter weekend in Devon.

Read more about the pond on our organic swimming pond page — including how it was built and how the filtration works.

Branscombe Beach (1 mile from Hole Mill)

Our local sea swim. A long pebble beach where the shelf drops away quickly, so you are out of your depth within a few strides of the shore. The water is genuinely clean and gin-clear on a calm summer day — Branscombe sits inside a Marine Conservation Zone, and the East Devon coast does not have any major rivers nearby to cloud the inshore water.

Best at high tide for swimming (more depth, less wading over loose pebbles). Watch the wind — anything northerly produces a steep, breaking swell on the shingle.

There is a wood-fired beach sauna at the eastern end of the beach run by Jurassic Sauna. Booking a sauna slot for sunset, walking down from Hole Mill, sweating for an hour and then plunging into the cold sea is one of the great Devon experiences.

Ladram Bay (12 miles)

If you are willing to drive thirty minutes and walk twenty, Ladram Bay is the single best wild swim in East Devon. A small cove sheltered by red sandstone sea stacks rising 30 metres out of the water. The stacks shelter a natural pool of calm water even on rougher days, and the bottom is mostly large boulders covered in a few inches of clear water — you can see fish and crabs through your goggles.

Park at Otterton Mill and walk the coast path (about 30 minutes), or come from Sidmouth via the cliffs (about an hour). There is a small holiday park at Ladram with toilets and a kiosk in summer. Best at mid-tide — the water is calmer, the boulder pool is fully submerged, and you can swim out and circle the stacks.

A note on safety: do not climb the stacks. They are friable sandstone and rocks fall regularly.

The River Otter — Otterton to Budleigh Salterton (15 miles)

The River Otter has one celebrity feature: it is England's only river where wild beavers live and breed. They were rediscovered in 2014, the colony has been formally allowed to remain since 2020, and on a still summer evening you have a real chance of seeing them at the dam pools above Otterton.

For swimming, look for the deep crook of the river half a mile downstream of Otterton — there is a pool roughly 1.2 m deep, gravel-bottomed, and so still that on a calm morning it looks like a sheet of glass. There is no formal access — you walk the riverside footpath from Otterton or from Budleigh Salterton.

Two practical things: the water is cold (river-fed, not warmed by the sea) and the cattle in the meadows occasionally use the same pool, so check upstream before you swim.

Branscombe Mouth tidal pools

At very low spring tides, the chalk reef east of Branscombe Mouth uncovers a set of natural tidal pools — clear, shallow, full of small fish and prawns. They are not deep enough to swim in (knee to thigh), but for children they are extraordinary. Take a snorkel and a small net.

You need a tide of 0.6 m or lower. Check the BBC tide tables for Lyme Regis or Sidmouth before you go.

Beer Beach (5 miles)

Calm, sheltered, gentle. Beer is a chalk-headland cove and the water there is some of the warmest in East Devon — a couple of degrees above Branscombe in summer, because the cove is south-facing and the cliffs absorb sun all day. There is a designated swimming area marked with buoys in summer (between roped-off boat launching channels).

Beer is the best beach in this list for nervous swimmers. The water is calm, the bottom is gentle, the cliffs shelter you from any westerly weather, and there are two cafés and a fishmonger fifty metres up the slipway.

Hooken Beach (between Branscombe and Beer, accessible only on foot)

Tucked under the Hooken Landslip — the dramatic cliff collapse east of Branscombe Mouth. You can only reach it by walking the South West Coast Path from either side, then dropping down a steep zigzag path through the chalk pinnacles. Pebble beach, deep water, almost always empty. Bring everything (no facilities, no signal). Allow two hours each way. The single most unspoiled stretch of coast within walking distance of Hole Mill.

A few notes on safe wild swimming

A short list — none of it dramatic, all of it useful:

  • Never swim alone in cold water unless you really know what you are doing. Cold water shock is real.
  • Get in slowly. Walk in from the shore, not jumping from a height — the gasp reflex on cold water entry is what catches people out.
  • Acclimatise. Stay in for one or two minutes the first time, build up over days. Your body adapts surprisingly quickly.
  • Watch the tide. Several places on this list (Hooken, Branscombe east of the café) become impassable at high spring tides.
  • Avoid swimming after heavy rain. Run-off from fields washes into rivers and the sea, and bacterial counts climb fast for 48 hours after a downpour.
  • Tell someone where you are going if you swim alone, even at our pond. Take your phone in a dry bag.

The honest case for staying at Hole Mill if you love wild swimming: you can swim at the pond at 7 am, walk down to Branscombe Beach mid-morning, drive to Ladram for a still-water swim mid-afternoon, and end the day in our wood-fired sauna with a glass of wine. We have had guests do exactly that.

If wild swimming is what you are planning your week around, check our availability — and bring a robe.