Eccup Reservoir, Yorkshire

Nestled just on the northern fringes of Leeds is a hidden treasure. Eccup Reservoir hard to see, in fact even when you are walking the perimeter walk you can't see the water at times. You can catch a glimpse of it when coming in towards the city from the A61 past Harewood - a slip of blue in the landscape shortly before  hitting the Leeds ring road. This is my usual route into the city, and each time I have thought about making a quick stop off to investigate the reservoir a bit closer.

As it happened, I did recently have an hour or so to spare and so with a couple of friends we decided to have a quick look around the reservoir. Armed with a local A to Z to find access to the reservoir this proved to be a little harder than expected. We decided against our first chosen parking place which looked a bit unofficial and the ground was covered in glass - perhaps from a previous parked car's window?! So we parked up in a layby and headed towards the reservoir on the Dales Way.

A pleasant walk through fields, this didn't lead us directly towards the reservoir, in fact the path remained a fair distance away form the water for the duration of our walk.

The fields and woodlands made for pleasant and easy walking though. We did catch glimpses of the lake between the trees and if we had made the full circuit then we would have enjoyed a walk across the dam bridge, however I'm sure we will be back for the full tour.

We walked as far as the reservoir lodge past the Goodridge Plantation before heading back. All in all a really pleasant little walk and despite the reservoir's proximity to Leeds, we only saw a few other people on our tour so this is well worth a trip out.

The ever faithful Walking Englishman website contains a great detailed walk description for an Eccup circular, which I will no doubt be doing sooner rather than later.