Devoke Water

Devoke Water is the largest tarn in the Lake District, sitting alone on the bleak, beautiful Birker Fell moor above Eskdale — and it is exactly the kind of quiet, un-NT'd water the honeypot valleys can't offer. Park at the cattle grid on the Birker Fell road and it is a short walk in across open access common to the shore, with a photogenic old boathouse as a foreground anchor. The scene is austere and lovely: a big sheet of water ringed by low fells, the Scafells rising behind to the north-east and the Isle of Man sometimes visible out west. Reflections at dawn are the reason to come, when the moor is dead still. Because it is remote you'll usually be alone, and the surrounding land is grazing common rather than National Trust, so TOAL is realistic for a hobbyist. Two cautions: it is a natural tarn, not a reservoir, so no United Utilities restriction applies, but the ground is boggy and exposed, and Sellafield's restricted airspace lies roughly 13km to the south-west, so stay north of the tarn and keep heights sensible. Bring a map; phone signal is poor and the moor is genuinely wild.