Last Updated on 12 May 2025 by Colette
Entwistle Reservoir near Bolton is a beautiful expanse of water surrounded by woodland – the circular waterside path is popular with families, dog walkers and runners alike. Dave and I were wowed by the views and the kids loved exploring the woodland and finding various tiny waterfalls!
The loop around Entwistle Reservoir is just over 2.5 miles and is pretty flat making it a great walk for children. Whilst it is accessible with a pushchair, it can be very wet with the paths flooded right across in places – so I would term it pushchair friendly by the skin of its teeth! You need to make sure you’ve got decent footwear on for this one – we did a lot of clambering around to avoid boggy sections and deep puddles. I’ve also been told that it’s not a good walk in freezing temperatures as the paths are like ice rinks.
There are benches dotted around the reservoir, perfectly placed to rest your legs and take in the view with a flask of coffee or a picnic but there are only bins at the start of the walk so be prepared to carry your rubbish with you.
From Entwistle Reservoir, you can also walk around Wayoh Reservoir but this is a less obvious loop so when Dave did it, he got a bit lost – he covered about 6 miles in total and says that the walk around Turton is more hilly and thus more challenging for little legs!
Parking for Entwistle Reservoir
There is a small car park for Entwistle Reservoir – I recommend that rather than using the post code (BL7 0LU) that you actually search for “Entwistle Reservoir car park” on Google Maps as otherwise your satnav can try to send you up private roads. What3Words for the Entwistle Reservoir car park is ///cured.mammal.debt .
In theory the car park is pay and display at Entwistle Reservoir but this has been broken each time we have visited over the course of five years! From memory, the parking charges are very cheap though just a couple of pounds but cash only. We’ve found the car park was pretty empty at 9.30am but was full by the time we got back to the car at 11am with people waiting for spaces. (This does rather seem to be par for the course wherever we go at the moment though!)
There are no public toilets or cafe so we do recommend taking drinks and snacks with you! I’ve been told the nearby Strawbury Duck is a popular, dog friendly pub if you’re in the market for a pint and a pub lunch so I think we’ll be stopping there next time we visit!
You can watch a video from our most recent visit here – the reservoir was looking super thirsty but the paths were lovely and dry making it a much easier walk:
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