Sywell Country Park

Sywell Country Park is one of a number of country parks in Northamptonshire. Situated to the east of Northampton centre it’s a popular location with dog owners with good reason.

Sywell Country Park – Parking and Facilities

Sywell country park is well served by a couple of car parks, an upper and lower one. Charges are the same as the other country parks in Northamptonshire, in other words steep. There is no hourly rate, the fee being £3.00 for up to 12 hours. Annual passes are available for frequent visitors at a cost of £36.00 for one named park or £49.00 which covers five country parks. The other four country parks are Brixworth Country Park (aka Pitsford Reservoir), Barnwell Country Park, Fermyn Woods Country Park and Irchester Country Park.

The Pump House cafe that’s located next to the car park offers a decent selection of drinks and snacks with good opening hours. Ewelina and I had a real dairy ice cream in a waffle cone at the end of the walk. A toilet block is also situated near the cafe so there is everything a dog walker could wish for.

Sywell Country Park – A circuit of the Reservoir

The country park was once a water supply reservoir and the Edwardian pump house building still remains. Walking around the reservoir will take at least an hour. Dogs can be off lead for most of the walk apart from two nature reserves that you pass through. Signs are clearly marked on the gates as you enter the nature reserves.

Ewelina and I noticed that whilst Sywell Country Park has some noticeable similarities to Brixworth Country Park, it seemed to be used far less by cyclists. For dog walkers this is a good thing, as many cyclists these days seem to have very short tempers and don’t seem to want to share the paths with pedestrians and other users. On the subject of other users, Sywell is also popular with anglers and bird watchers. Day and season tickets to fish are available with Tench and Pike being common species to catch. A bird watching hide is located close to the water’s edge but was empty when we walked past.

Another thing we noted was that there were a decent number of dog waste bins. In some locations you only find one at the start of the car park. Here are Sywell Country Park however they seem to be located at regular distances.

All in all we were quite impressed by Sywell as a location to walk dogs. Archie our border collie certainly seemed to enjoy it. It’s only the parking charges that are likely to prevent me from using it more often.