Watermead Country Park
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The Watermead Country Park is a network of artificial lakes in the valley of the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal (old), to the north of Leicester, in Leicestershire. It runs north-south along the path of the watercourses, with Birstall to the west and Thurmaston to the east. The parks provide bird watching, fishing and watersports facilities.
The northern-most lake is named John Merricks Lake, after the late John Merricks, a silver Olympic medalist who practiced sailing on the lake prior to his tragic death in a car accident in 1997.
Further south is King Lear's Lake, a popular fishing lake which can be circumnavigated and is popular with people walking dogs and cyclists. A statue on the western side of the lake depicts the final scene of Shakespeare's play King Lear. The lake is also used for open water swim training by Leicester Triathlon Club, and for water training of Newfoundland Dogs.
There are several further artificial lakes continuing south following the course of the canal ending with the southern-most lake, often called the mammoth lake due to the presence of a large statue of a woolly mammoth on a hill looking over Leicester. The Millennium Mammoth was built to commemorate the discovery of ice age mammoth remains found when Watermead was a quarry.
There are plans currently being discussed to construct a new visitor centre with a lakeside cafe, visitor facilities and disabled services within the park, at a potential cost of around £5.5m.
