Walk Kielder in Northumberland. Kielder is a great base for walking and exploring both the lake and forest.

My favorite walks in the Kielder area of Northumberland explores the Northeast shoreline of Kielder water.

Click here for more details of this  Kielder walk.

Kielder, Northumberland.

Kielder Water is one of the largest man made reservoirs in Northern Europe with a surface area of 1068 hectares and Kielder Forest is the largest in Britain covering over 600 kilometres.

The construction of Kielder Water started in 1975 and was completed in 1982 to meet the ever-increasing water requirements of the North East of England.

The dam is almost 3/4 of a mile long and 52 metres high. It contains approximately 155.3 million cubic feet of material, much of which was taken from the site which soon became the reservoir. The lake is capable of holding 200,000 million litres of water. The surface area is 1086 hectares and it has a shoreline of 27 miles.

As well as its main purpose of providing water for the Northeast, Kielder has become a large centre for recreational activities. It has two visitor centres at both Tower Knowe and Kielder Castle. Kielder has an activity centre for the disabled at Low Cranecleugh and a Scout camp at Hawk Hirst. Most of the watersport activities are based at Leaplish Waterside Park, which include sailing, windsurfing, water-skiing and canoeing.