Rutland Water (Normanton)

Included with a health warning, because everyone asks about it. Rutland Water is Anglian Water land, and their published position is blunt: drones are not permitted anywhere on the park without prior written consent — that covers Normanton, Sykes Lane, Barnsdale, the dam and the shoreline circuit. So the famous half-drowned Normanton Church image is not one you can legally set up from the lakeside without either AW's written permission or a TOAL point on genuinely non-AW land outside the estate boundary, which takes real homework with ownership maps and a longer transit than most sub-250g batteries enjoy in a lakeside breeze. If you do secure consent, a flat-calm dawn with the church doubled in reflection is among the best images the Midlands offers, with hot-air balloons often adding interest on summer mornings. Absolute red line regardless of paperwork: the western Egleton and Lyndon arms are an SSSI, SPA and Ramsar wetland with breeding ospreys — never fly there. RAF Wittering's FRZ lies roughly 10 km east-south-east; Normanton sits outside it, but check your app on the day and keep an ear out for military helicopters working from Kendrew Barracks to the north.