Distance: 1.5 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: easy

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

Walk along the shore of the impressive and famously beautiful Earlswood Lakes canal feeder reservoirs on the border between West Midlands county and Warwickshire.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

The “Scarborough of the Midlands”?

Earlswood Lakes, along the border between West Midlands county and Warwickshire were constructed in the 1820s as part of the great boom in canal reservoir construction.

This makes Earlswood Lakes, which collect and supply water to the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, contemporaneous with many of the midlands other great canal reservoirs and reservoir networks such as Knypersley (formed by the construction of the only dam on the 185 mile long course of the River Trent) and the vast Chasewater just north of Walsall.

Earlswood Lakes is composed of a network of three lakes. The lie of the land between Hockley Heath – just south of Earlswood – and Stratford is hilly with 55 locks in total. A lot for a stretch of canal that is around 15 miles long. This is what necessitates the continuous supply of large quantities of water to the reservoir.

Described by the journalist, author and critic Juliet Jacques as one of the few good things about Britain, despite being created by human labour and yet to pass their 200th birthday, Earlswood Lakes are a rightly popular beauty spot. Their handy situation practically beside the railway line between the West Midlands and Stratford-upon-Avon made them a popular daytip destination, alongside the Clent and Lickey Hills to the west, for Birmingham’s workers on their days off.

Nicknamed “The Scarborough of the Midlands” – a title that is hotly in dispute given the tendency of Midlanders to treat anywhere with water like the seaside – Earlswood Lakes became so popular as a place for walking, dinghy sailing, fishing and other activities that in 1935 a dedicated railway station was constructed to grant easy access. Unusually for such halts it still exists to this day. Bearing the name “The Lakes (Warwickshire)” (presumably to enable travellers and railway ticket clerks to distinguish it from a destination in the Cumbrian Lake District…) it is a rare example of a request stop, where you have to ask the guard to alight, and flag down the train driver – as if you were on a bus – to get onboard.

With repairs most recently undertaken in 2021 it looks likely that Earlswood Lakes will continue to be a popular visitor destination for people from Birmingham, Solihull and central Warwickshire for a very long time to come.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

Having requested The Lakes Railway Station stop from the guard, and alighted take the ramp off the platform up onto the road.

Here, turn left and start walking down a suburban road. A mixture of interwar and some more recent ribbon development, Terry’s Green part of the fringe of the sprawling commuter village of Earlswood, located just south of the boundary between Stratford-upon-Avon District and the Metropolitan Borough of Solihull.

After several minutes walking there is a footpath running off the road to your left.

Walk down it a short distance until you come out by a car park on the edge of a park.

Cross the car park and head through a gate on the far side.

Head a short distance down the path beyond the gate until you come to another gate.

Stepping through the gate brings you out beside Earlswood Lakes. At the causeway seperating Terry’s Pool and Engine Pool.

Turn right here and walk along beside the lake.

Engine Pool, the one of the three reservoirs you are walking beside, is popular with anglers.

There were a fair few out on the afternoon I walked the route, as well as teenagers hanging out, sunbathers using the fishing jetties to catch the rays, and two women who appeared to be preparing for an Eid meal, Eid having been taking place at the time.

Near the end of the Engine Pool, on the opposite bank from where you are walking, stands the well preserved remains of a steam pumping engine house, constructed in the 1820s to pump water when the reservoirs were new.

Soon you come out at the end of the road causeway which divides the Engine Pool from the smaller Windmill Pool.

Cross the road here – avoiding cars trying to cross the narrow single lane causeway – and then head right, uphill back into Terry’s Green towards The Lakes Railway Station.

After a short distance you reach the pavement.

Heading right here, you can soon see that you are walking back the way you came, albeit in the opposite direction.

In no time you reach the station bridge where this walk ends.

Getting Back

Earlswood is not well served by public transport apart from The Lakes Railway Station where this walk began and Earlswood Railway Station a little further north. Unlike The Lakes, Earlswood is a regular stopping station as opposed to a halt. Both are well served by trains south towards Stratford, and north towards Birmingham, the Black Country and eventually Kidderminster. The service is hourly in each direction on weekdays and Saturdays throughout the day, and also fairly good on Sundays.