Western Daily Press (Saturday)
UK’s oldest lido ready to make a splash
BATH’S Cleveland Pools is ready to welcome swimmers for the first time in nearly 40 years.
A lucky few will be able to take the plunge this morning.
The UK’s oldest lido has been painstakingly restored over the last 15 months and now the Grade II-listed attraction can reopen at last. A fortunate 100 people entered and won a competition to be the first to test the waters in a preview session on September 10.
However, this – and the pools’ official opening on September 17 – were cancelled following the death of Her Majesty the Queen. When the first 100 swimmers eventually get to test the waters today it will be for a coldwater dip, as the river-powered heat pumps will not be up and running until next spring.
Ina Harris, a pools trustee, said the £9.3m restoration project had turned out even better than she had hoped.
“To be honest, I think it’s exceeded our expectations. It’s exhilarating and really marvellous to see it restored.
“Along the way, lots of people have said, ‘You’ll never do it’ but we’re all volunteers, apart from a few staff, and we knew we would do it, we absolutely knew we would. Not only that, from the start, the trustees have said, ‘This is going to be a community asset, this is not for the posh end of Bath or the tourists, it really is for the local people’.”
Cleveland Pools was built in 1815 and its restoration began over 200 years later, in May 2021, with Donald Insall Architects drawing up the plans. While the pools were originally fed by the River Avon, today they use mains water.
The crescent-shaped main pool stretches to 25m and a smaller, shallower splash pool has been created for children. Around the edges of the water, the original Georgian changing rooms and cottage have been given a facelift, with new seating, toilets and showers. A refreshment kiosk and heritage exhibition have also been created.
Ina added: “If you look back at its history, it was so popular, it was packed with kids and the joy of being able to swim and have fun, in a historic pool, is even better. I will come and swim here – but maybe not in the winter!”
Ina, who hails from Carmarthenshire in Wales, remembers when Cleveland Pools was used as a trout farm. It wasn’t until she retired that she became aware of the lido’s fascinating history and the need to preserve it.
“I went to a local history society presentation and one of the ladies there was giving a presentation on Cleveland Pools and it just got my attention. So I looked into it and I was just fascinated by its history.
“It’s a treasure and it was left here derelict – I couldn’t believe it, you know, most other towns and cities would jump at the chance of having something like this. Yet, in Bath, this has just been left.”
A few months later, Ina became a member of the Cleveland Pools Trust and helped apply to the Heritage Lottery Fund for the money to restore the lido. They also asked Historic England to survey the site and that saw its listing upgraded to Grade II.
“It’s quite a demanding thing to put these bids in, but we’ve done it and the local authority has helped us as well, and WECA. It’s been a long, long haul, but well worth it. In total, we’ve had over £6 million from the lottery fund but we’ve also had money from Historic England, several charitable funders, and Sports England,” Ina said.
Anna Baker was appointed as project director by the Cleveland Pools Trust when plans for its renovation began. An architect by trade, she was working on the preservation team at
Harrods, in London, before coming to Bath. Anna said: “Harrods is actually Grade II-listed too, so the same listing as the pools, and so when I started looking for heritage projects outside London, my partner suggested this. There have been a lot of ups and downs but there is only one Cleveland Pools, it’s truly unique, and it’s been the project of a lifetime.”
As project director, it has been Anna’s job to coordinate all the
building work by Beard Construction with the pools’ focus on the community. For example, in the new children’s pool, swimmers will encounter tiles designed by local schoolchildren, which depict key figures in the lido’s history.
As anyone familiar with Cleveland Pools will know, the lido is sandwiched between the houses on Hampton Row and the River Avon. This posed a logistical challenge for Beard Construction, which knew early on that it would not be able to bring heavy building lorries through a residential area.
Not to mention, the only access to the pools from Hampton Row is a narrow alleyway between the houses. All this meant that any building materials would have to come by barge along the river.
Project manager Mark Tregelles explained how it was done: “We’ve got a yard down at Avon Rugby Club where we can get vehicle traffic to. All of our materials get delivered there and put into manageable sizes then floated down to Cleveland Pools.
“Concrete and tarmac were the only things we could bring in from Hampton Row.”