[Closed] Anyone have a swimming pool at home ? What was your local lido called ?

In answer to your first question. I do. We built it ourselves and ordered the pool and roof from Poland as it was a fraction of the price from Germany, Took three months of solid work to build but our kids love it in the long summer we have here. As for a local Lido when I was a kid? No, never had one near where I lived...only a swimming pool.

Had my first kiss at Hood Park in Ashby. Its an outdoor pool. Actually it was just the pool, I dont think there was an indoor one? Are Lidos as southern thing?

As for running costs. We looked at a house with one, they reckoned on £1500 a year in gas. And that was for a concrete hole in the ground heated by a central heating boiler. There must be a better way of building it (insulated fiberglass?) and heating it (solar?). But I was still surprised it was cheaper than a couple of gym memberships.

Whipps Cross

River Tame

Had my first kiss at Hood Park in Ashby. Its an outdoor pool.

I hope it wasn’t heavy petting, we all know that was banned along with running, smoking and bombing

Guilford Lido. Bloody marvelous place. 50m pool with grass and gardens around it. I used to live half a mile away and have a season ticket.

They'd close at 6 and open at 6:30 for lane swimming. No buoys/lines, just find a spot.
I'd ride there in my swimming shorts, flip-flops and a t shirt, lock the bike up with the D lock through the flip flops, queue up with the other 5 or 10 who were there before re-opening.
They'd go left and right to change, I'd fling my t-shirt on a bench and dive into the still, unbroken water, swim half a length underwater and pop up to watch my entry wave come to meet me.

Swimming pools ?, garden ponds ??, my my, this is coming across like a very posh forum.

does anyone here have a butler ? 😕

Outdoor pool ? Luxury.

We had to go to the seaside. Morcombe. It had one of those filled-by-the-sea-coming-in-and-over-it pools. With mussels growing on the walls and crabs in the bottom 😱

But these days ?

The 40 yard long spring fed lido at the New Bath Hotel, Matlock Bath. It's lovely. Was in there at dinner time today. 18.8 degrees C today. Puuurfick.

(The water comes in one end from a natural spring at about 17.5C.  Flows through and then out the other end, off down into the River Derwent.  No chemicals. No heating. No impact on the environment.

Stays nearly the same temp all year, give or take a couple of degrees (maybe down to 14.5 in.mid winter when there's snow about)

We had to go to the seaside. Morcombe. It had one of those filled-by-the-sea-coming-in-and-over-it pools. With mussels growing on the walls and crabs in the bottom

https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tidal

Hers is probably good few degrees warmer, though, I'll give you that!

Learnt to swim in Amersham pool. Now living in Wales, loads of rivers available as well as the local but now closed Brynamman Lido. I hear that there may be plans to get it reopened. Fingers crossed.

Anyone else impressed that the first reply was surprisingly "yes, I've got a private indoor pool" 😀

Abergavenny used to have a lido in Bailey Park. Memories of going there a few times in the early 70s. Then a kid drowned in it and its days were numbered. In the late 80s I went out with a girl whose parents had a really lovely pool in their garden high on the mountain above Abergavenny. We spent hours in that pool over many summers. I sometimes wonder why I walked away from that one. She is now a consultant orthopaedic surgeon. Oh yeah, I think her middle name was Louise.

Burgess Hill pool in St John's park - it was in full colour in my day 😉

Apparently it got filled in in 1999, the year I left home for uni. To be fair, they have built a fantastic leisure centre with outdoor lazy river and flumes. Way more fun, if a little less nostalgic.

I have a pool, but live in Australia where everyone has one. Humblebrag.

Had a canal and the river Neath in my back garden as a kid, had an amazing time growing up in and around the water there. Made rafts, had little row boats, awesome times.
If it was hot we would, and still do, head up to the deeper pools by Clyne to chill in the river there. Plenty of places around there to mess about in the water.

Early formative years spent in Warwickshire, and remember our local pool (the Pingles?) ran a multiple entry passport scheme for the summer holidays- cost something like 50p. We often went twice a day. From memory is was a big Olympic size pool with proper high diving boards,, which the kids had free access to. Terrying but exhilarating!

Then moved to Wiltshire early eighties, and had another big, but open air pool at Monkton Park. Dad got us into scuba diving, and the local BSAC club were asked to provide "safety cover" for the 1982 edition of "Its a knockout" which had several water based events filmed there. There was a death slide rigged from the top of the highest diving board, from which contestants had to drop onto floating pontoons. All hard edges and lots of nasty injuries in rehearsals, looking back health and safety seemed pretty optional! Joined the crew and contestants for lunch at the neighbouring sports centre and saw how Stuart Hall leched at the girls, who were all over him as a TV personailty - we saw how that all turned out 🙄

Rounding off, next door neighbours had a great open air pool in their very modest garden. We were invited round a lot - with our Scuba kit often helped with repairs and maintenance, in return for almost free reign access over the summers. Neighbours moved, new owners immediately filled it in, shame...

This was my lockdown project last spring.

Was anyone around to see the lido in Millhouses park in Sheffield? Apparently there was one around the area where the fish bypass is.

We only had a big outdoor paddling pool in our local park but I lived in Plymouth for a while which has a nice lido.

Henleaze Swimming Lake when I was a kid. You can’t even join the waiting list now.

does anyone here have a butler ?

If you don’t have a butler, you are the butler.

Summer hols, WACADAY finishes, get bucket (normally an old 20 litre tile adhesive container) and spade, crappy inflatable dingy (no oars), walk the 400 yards to the top of the road, over the sea wall and the paradise below awaited.

Sunny Canvey Island....

Would spend all day up there. If the tide was out crabbing or mud fights then as it came in, we'd jump off the wall of the tidal swimming pool as the wash from container vessel would create "surf" as they moved up the Thames to Tilbury docks.

When we got older we'd go up to the jetty and jump off at high tide.... looking back that was stupid, launching off the highest put meant the lowest water depth.

Then walk home, gingerly, bare foot on red hot tarmac, jump in the shower and sting the sun burn out of yourself.

Happy Days

My dad had a pool when he lived in California. Our girls learnt to swim in that from a very early age. Our local lido was Ruislip. Ruislip Lido, a big lake in the middle if Ruislip Woods, great place.

Are Lidos as southern thing?

Nope, off the top of my head, there are Lidos in 'the north', Hathersage, Ilkley and Ingleton have them.

I've earmarked the area where the kids swings are for a small pool in the garden, but that'll have to wait a few years. Would like one of those jet machine things that creates a current to swim against though.

No pool, can’t swim, no interest in it but Mrs Kilo is off to Tooting lido in half an hour and that’s still going strong after about 120 years.

Deer Leap in Ashridge was a quite ride for me up Tom's hill. unheated, open year round. went a few times in the winter with my dad and had to break the ice as you swam.
Awesome fun with the dodgiest diving boards in the world (very old wood that had no grip after the first wet kid had jumped off, very sketchy).
fresh doughnuts and surrounded by grass. good times!

Sold a good few years back and now a McMansion (which actually looks quite nice)

The local outdoor pool/lido here is pretty cool in ways than one... Da Muckle Loch

As a kid we just had the north sea at Saltburn, but there was an outdoor pool and a lido at Scarborough that we got to sometimes on 'the club trips'. The village Working Man's Club put on an annual village trip to Scarborough for families where we all piled in to decrepit buses, complete with paper bag packed lunch, for a day out down the coast. It seemed like a real adventure and treat at the time!

@BillMC Whipps Cross was mine as well.
It was a fantastic location being right on the edge of Epping Forest, such a shame when it closed and fell into disrepair. We used have a lot of fun building rafts in there when it was derelict as well, I remember there being fish in the manky water!

Not just southern. Mysteriously there are five outdoor pools near Penrith not including Center Parcs - http://www.visiteden.co.uk/what-to-do/sports-activities/swimming-pools/. I live nowhere near Penrith ☹️

@ambrose, Amersham pool is being replaced - should open in the autumn.

We didn't have a lido in Maidstone where I grew up, we had a proper Victorian swimming band washing baths down by the river and gas works. That got replaced by a modern pool. There was also a pool in the Royal Engineers barracks that my dad had access to.

With all that in place it took me until 14 to learn to swim and that was in Yugoslavia (now Croatia) on holiday.

I think the most northerly lido in the UK would have been Tarlair? We had Portobello in Edinburgh though I was never in it.

The 40 yard long spring fed lido at the New Bath Hotel, Matlock Bath

Saw that had reopened but didn't know the whole spring fed thing. Will have to pay a visit - might need some lessons to remember how to actually swim first

I think the most northerly lido in the UK would have been Tarlair? We had Portobello in Edinburgh though I was never in it.

There was an actual lido (now a carpark) in Scalloway until 1993
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/scottish-daily-mail/20190629/282355451286641

We had the River Tarff, an idyllic pool with four foot of clean water, sandy bottom, wee fishes and a grassy bank with shady trees if you needed it. Magic.
Here's Stonehaven lido though from a trip up to the grandparents in Aboyne, probably 1970/71..
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And that would be me aged 8 or 9 at the top of the chute...
[img] [/img]

Yes, Ive got an indoor pool. Got no water in it though, nor will it again. Interestingly if you have a fibreglass pool (as I do) and you leave it empty over time the swell of the ground lifts it out and you can't use it anymore. So top tip pool owners, keep your pool weighed down with an elephant or something if you take the water out.

Not much point in having a pool at home when this is so close you can see the roof of our house in the pic. 50m, 27°C all year round even during a pandemic so far.

A lot of time spent at Gourock pool as a youngster, still some of the weirdest changing rooms/caves I've used!

Hilarious going there with my kids now as heated sea water does not compute in relation to ingestion or floatability

In Queensland it's pretty essential. Butlers are frowned upon though.

Swam at Uxbridge Lido as a kid visiting my grandparents.

Alfreton Lido for me - loved that place - especially the diving pool where I perfected my belly flops of the top board!

Spent so much time there in the summer months. Just found this old video of the opening of it.

[img] [/img]

Hathersage outdoor pool was close to home a s kid. Only remember going once as an awkward young teen and my more confident mate chatting up girls while my dad was on the side so I was utterly embarrassed. This wasn't helped when the girl accused me of having a hard on (which i didn't).

A butler?

Sadly not, had to let the poor fellow go. We only have a chef, cleaner and a Valet these days.

Teignmouth Lido. At the end of the sea front. Yes, 30m from the sea. You had to leave to use the wave machine 😉

Swimming pools - utter death traps you mean 😉

TheDTs

Henleaze Swimming Lake when I was a kid. You can’t even join the waiting list now.

Wistfully remembering that being the place where I first got those thoughts of girls being something other than annoying 😀

Had to spend rather too long in the water before the tent subsided 😉

As someone who was a keen swimmer until Covid hit, I've often thought it would be nice to have a pool. We know a couple of people who have them. Problem is, it would mean moving to somewhere that offered sufficient space (so, outside London, basically), and we don't want to do that. Then, there's the problem of having a pool that's actually big enough for a proper swim, so at least 25m. Would obviously need to be a decent depth as well, so that's a very large amount of earth that would need removing. Even once you've got past the cost of all that, there's the cost and logistics of keeping it maintained; pool-owning people we know, say it's a nightmare. And none of them have anything adequate; they're just large baths to show off with. Utterly pointless really, unless you have youngsters who'd enjoy splashing about. Fortunately, the recent increased popularity of sports activities and fitness, means there are now lots more publically accessible pools that someone else has the cost and hassle of running. A lifetime of membership would still be a fraction of what a decent pool would cost.

Lidos are for Victorian perverts.

Pools? Lidos?

It was the river Itchen (which it did make you) in Southampton for me. Racing dead rats downstream and making patterns in the oily rainbows on the surface.

And learning to canoe off Western Shore. Well, dunno about canoe, it was more a case of going through the motions (boom! boom!)

We just had this...

Legend has it that it a mistake in construction meant that they forgot to take into account the thickness of the tanking and the tiles and the finished pool was 6 inches short of Olympic size which meant it was unable to be used for official competitions.

I spent about 40 % of my entire childhood in there.

Was anyone around to see the lido in Millhouses park in Sheffield? Apparently there was one around the area where the fish bypass is.

Yep, that was my local as a kid @PiknMix. Have great memories of it as a child. There was one in Rivelin which fell in to disrepair but got renovated a few years back though. Millhouses was always the one to go to though.

Then, there’s the problem of having a pool that’s actually big enough for a proper swim, so at least 25m

My friend has an endless pool in their garage for proper swim training. Think swimming treadmill. I think they can double up as a sex pool hot tub. She's very pleased with it. Not cheap and I have long thought a useful option. Domestic pools are invariably too short for proper swimming.

I've looked into getting an endless pool, but you still need quite a bit of room.

Probably a bit of a waste in a 1930s terraced house too 🙂

@tuboflard thanks for sharing that, I’ve never actually seen it before. Looks amazing.

my sister inlaw swims at home in a small pool in the garden with a bungy chord tied to one end! seems to work.

We have an outdoor pool here in town, a really old one, 75yards long. It's great in the summer, 22 lengths makes about a mile. It's weird at first swimming 75yds without a break for turning but you soon get used to it. Lots of Tri athletes use it for training. It didn't open last year though, not sure if it'll open this year yet either.

When I lived in Japan I basically had my own private lido - one of the junior schools I worked at up the road had a 20m outdoor pool, and I could climb over the fence and use it on weekends 😎 .

I've also swum at the New Bath Hotel pool in Matlock Bath - lovely! - though I prefer the little indoor one they have in the old wine cellar with the vaulted roof.

We have an Intex pool in the garden. 5m by 3 and 1m40 deep.
I swim with bungee ropes and can manage an hour.
In the town we also have a 50m Olympic pool, with diving board etc...
And compared to the UK, the diving board is pretty much a free for all. No need to wait at the bottom.

We just had this…

Legend has it that it a mistake in construction meant that they forgot to take into account the thickness of the tanking and the tiles and the finished pool was 6 inches short of Olympic size which meant it was unable to be used for official competitions.

Where’s this @peachypanther ?

Thought it was Wigan, as that had the same rumour; that they’d forgotten to take the tiles into account and ended up and inch or two short.

When I will the Euromillions a swimming pool is high up on the list of things to have!

I love swimming but hate the lane-culture at leisure centres.

And a full size snooker table - I'd have one of those too! 🙂

My friend has an endless pool in their garage for proper swim training. Think swimming treadmill.

I put that straight into the same category of treadmills and static bikes. IE; the work of Satan. A quick Google suggests such an affront to all that is decent, would cost from about £16k, so not so bad if you really, really, really need a personal swimming pool. So a fraction of what a real pool would cost, yet still more than a lifetime's pool membership for me, plus it'll last what, a few years?

Hilsea Lido. Legendary. https://hilsea-lido.org.uk/nostalgia/ (The high diving board was before my time!)
I actually went there again when my kid was a toddler. I think it's the place where his mum forgot to strap him into the buggy and he fell out, scraping his face on the concrete. I'll find a photo!

Ah, such fond memories

Overshoot, how old are you? That could have been my sister!! Would have been mid 90’s when we were up there I guess.

I’m pretty sure the pool that @perchypanther is on about was the one in the centre of Leeds as sure I heard the same rumour when I was younger too.

@PiknMix, yep it was superb (through my hazy rose tinted glasses), where the fish steps are now were a set of connected long narrow paddling pools too but they were closed due to concerns about pollution from the river I think.

Pool on nearby military base that was always freezing. 80s.

I’m pretty sure the pool that @perchypanther is on about was the one in the centre of Leeds as sure I heard the same rumour when I was younger too

Wishaw Baths. Hundreds of miles from Leeds. I imagine it’s an apocryphal tale attached to municipal swimming pools all over the world

A quick Google suggests such an affront to all that is decent, would cost from about £16k, so not so bad if you really, really, really need a personal swimming pool.

Exactly. She's in North Carolina. I was thinking of one for a nice small house in France. Cool, easy to maintain, cover and leave... Hmmm

Athens training pool...

learned to swim here; the pool at Kai Tak RAF base in the 70's. I remember once that the RAF were supposed to have a "war" with the Gurkha army unit. They declared the Pool the last redoubt and all rushed back to 'defend' it. Funny how that involved mostly lounging around drinking beer and swimming with their kids, while the poor Gurkhas ran about the air base looking for 'enemy' to shoot or capture

I think I was in my 30's the first time I heard someone talk about a lido... Rivers, sea and swimming pools were my childhood destinations for swimming.

Nothing that fancy up here if Fife...we just carve them out of the foreshore:

St. Monans

Pittenweem:

Just Googled the Leeds pool and it was in fact a myth that it was too short. Worse it was apparently too narrow!

Highbury fields was my closest, my school Highbury had its own pool too.

Since then i lived in crouch end where the park road lido backed onto our house. an absolute nightmare in the summer with loads of different people bunking in and going swimming and whooping in the night.
they installed security and one night i saw him in the pool ffs.

i sorted it.

@TheDTs
Full Member

Overshoot, how old are you? That could have been my sister!! Would have been mid 90’s when we were up there I guess.

Old I'm old would have been 1976-81, no doubt your sister is lovely though 😉

Langold Lake.

Where’s this @peachypanther ?

Thought it was Wigan, as that had the same rumour; that they’d forgotten to take the tiles into account and ended up and inch or two short.

I heard a similar rumour, Halifax west yorks? somewhere in west yorks anyway, they dug the hole the right size but failed to take into account that the brickwork and tiles would end up with a slightly smaller than olympic regualtion size pool. oopsie!

A classic case of measure twice, cut once 😀

We have two Lidos in Cambridge:

Jusus green 91.4m in length:

Sheep's green learner pool

Only on a very hot summers day, which were few and far between!
@58.4285839,-3.0719548,209m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m7!3m6!1s0x489ad69dd3dd9c59:0x390ea15c15a01882!8m2!3d58.4288302!4d-3.0702549!9m1!1b1">North Baths

@58.4351973,-3.089782,4098m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x489ad69dd3dd9c59:0x390ea15c15a01882!8m2!3d58.4288303!4d-3.0702551">The Trinkie

Southport Lido on Merseyside. It was filled with seawater and always freezing but had a couple of big diving boards etc. Bloody ace place to go as a kid.

Long since demolished. Theres a Frankie and Benny's there now 🙁

River Nene

We just had this…

Legend has it that it a mistake in construction meant that they forgot to take into account the thickness of the tanking and the tiles and the finished pool was 6 inches short of Olympic size which meant it was unable to be used for official competitions.

Leeds International (yeah right) pool. Built during Poulson's pomp (younger as in under 55 readers can google). Version I heard was it was just two tile thicknesses too short. Used to go there for British Sub Aqua Club meetings and games of octopush, a very violent sport.

One of those concrete beams you can see in the pic actually fell in to the pool, or part of it did. So they closed some of the spectator seating.

Okay, Poulson, local authority corruption basically, contract stitch-ups. See first episodes of Our Friends in the North. One of my grandfathers was deputy borough architect for Warrington (in retrospect I'd place him somewhere on a spectrum, though back then we just thought he was very, very Lancastrian). He mentioned at a dinner wanting to have some work done to move where one of the doors was in his house. Few days later some builders turn up and just do the job. He realises months later he was never charged. Slightly different league I guess. My other grandfather was a hospital porter. No swimming pool round there.

Good to have this at the bottom of the road when the kids were kids, albeit other side of a river that's good for swimming

There's a great art deco style one in Peterborough, but I've never been as when it's open the queues are monumental.

Growing up, the nearest thing called a Lido to me was probably Ruislip Lido but I think that's actually a reservoir & not supposed to be swum in. There was a lido there until the 70s I think.
I used to do X-Country races there occasionally when I ran for Thames Valley Harriers.

I lived for 6 months in a little town in Bavaria that had a Naturfreibad. It was great - a short cycle from town, fling a few beers in your rucsack & chill out at the weekend. Loads of the towns in the local area had them & they were all free to get into.
A great place to live in general, to be honest.

https://goo.gl/maps/1yMmZ7DPaYn1wTDC7

(The water comes in one end from a natural spring at about 17.5C. Flows through and then out the other end, off down into the River Derwent. No chemicals. No heating. No impact on the environment.

You know that the majority of the heat that water collects is a result of the decay of Uranium to Radon? When they studied the water flow they found that it stays relatively shallowly in the rock so very little of the heat is traditional geothermal heating.

Just out of interest who runs the pool at the New Bath (I lost track the last time the hotel went bust).

For me it was Matlock Lido, although they had just put a plastic roof on. More recently it was Hathersage Pool (until I was told by a nice lady with a home counties accent that I wasn’t local enough for them to sell me a season ticket).

I lived in Keswick so the nearest Lido was Grange Over Sands which was great and may get a refurb if we are lucky. That was a rare treat however so swimming was mostly in Towns field, the lake, the board by the Borrowdale Hotel, Grange bridge, Black Moss Pot or Manesty which was always my favorite, bizarre that it was 1ft deep on one side and deep enough to jump off the bridge on the other

I can see this one from my house