Richard Uridge travels to Wiltshire, a county famous for its beautiful landscapes and ancient monuments. He begins by diving into the River Frome with Rob Fryer. Rob has travelled the length and breadth of the country charting the many wild ponds and rivers where swimming has taken place. The Farleigh Hungerford swimming club, Britain's oldest river swimming club, was founded in 1930. He explains how people always swam this way for reasons of economy and because there were no other facilities. He tells Richard how new swimming pools in the 1960s and environmental pollution took people away from the great outdoors. Now anybody thinking of swimming in ponds and rivers is considered weird or eccentric and as acting irresponsibly - which Rob is keen to refute. While he accepts there are dangers, he believes common sense should prevail and people should be given the opportunity to look out for themselves and commune with nature. He's produced a guide to swimming around Britain called Rob's Directory of Cool Places in which he uses personal experience and the advice of locals to describe where it is safe to swim.
Wiltshire Tourist Board
Wild swimming

Richard meets Katy Jordan who's an expert on ancient wells at Bratton. They go down a track to Lady Well. The well-house is built of dressed stone with a squared-off doorway out of which flows a vigorous stream. The roof is pitched with overgrown ivy. Wiltshire has around 19 ancient wells and springs. A small number are holy wells, which would have been used by the church; the rest are healing wells, which would have been used to treat a range of ailments - in some cases right up to the 20th century. Many wells became famous and sought after and attributed with valuable properties. The well at the George Inn in Biddestone was said to have cured the landlady's hysterical fits while Salts Hole at Purton Stoke is described as being good for "digestive, liver and kidney ailments, gout, skin complaints, rheumatism, sciatica, bronchial and glandular illnesses, and being unhinged".
Wells info