FOUR POOLS WORTH A PILGRIMAGE
Christopher Beanland, author of ‘Lido: A dip into outdoor swimming pools: the history, design and people behind them’, selects his top swimming spots
JUBILEE POOL Penzance
The sheer abandon of Jubilee Pool is what stands out – you’d expect nothing less from something designed by a man who went by the title Captain F Latham. The bravado is epitomised by the bold shape, like a huge Dorito or Toblerone slice, and by its size. It’s the largest saltwater lido in Britain. Today that bravado continues: the people running the pool have drilled into the sea bed to provide the geothermal energy to heat its water. It’s lived through a lot – opened in 1935 for George V’s Silver Jubilee, it popularised Penzance as a resort in the art deco era.
LONDON FIELDS LIDO Hackney, London
This ultimately modest (but incredibly well-managed) lido exists without fanfare, save for the cute coloured changing room doors. It has something of a reputation as Britain’s most hipster lido and there is some truth in that – on weekday afternoons it’s more like WeWork-on-Sea, with creative freelancers blathering away on their phones and plenty of good-looking, well-groomed types. The work of Harry Arnold Rowbotham and T L Smithson, it opened in 1932 and had a twin in Kennington Park, which bit the dust in 1987. It’s been refurbished several times and is now one of the city’s most endearing little pockets of calm and pleasure.
SALTDEAN LIDO Brighton
The modernism of England’s south coast offered a shot in the arm to several fading Edwardian resorts. These included Deal Pier, Bottle Alley in St Leonards, the art deco Embassy Court by Wells Coates in Brighton, and Serge Chermayeff and Erich Mendelsohn’s symphony to smoothness, the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill. The latter has much in common with Saltdean’s lustrous lido, which arrived three years later. It’s probably England’s best looking – though shouldn’t we judge lidos on their personality, too, these days? With its embracing arms and symmetrical purity, it perfectly reflects the age of health, efficiency and the new. It remains open as it’s slowly restored to former glory.
TINSIDE LIDO Plymouth
John Wibberley’s masterwork is a lido the city of Plymouth can truly be proud of. The enormous curved pool projects out into the English Channel below the famous Hoe, where Francis Drake liked a game of bowls. It has an eight-sided theme, with octagonal fountains at either corner and one in the middle, which brings the whole piece to life, along with the old bathing beauty posters on the walls. Completed in 1935, it succumbed like so many others to a closure, from 1992-2005, which would be totally unthinkable today. Tinside Beach is just next door.