There is a place on the coast, a place that is almost forgotten. It lies in the shadow of the promenade and you might never notice it was there. The zig-zag of steps leading down to it is unobtrusive and ends abruptly on the rocks. You might wonder why there is a staircase here at all. But look before you and you will see a bowl scooped neatly out of the rocks. Peer into the foggy water, choked with bladderwrack, and you might notice flagstones at its base. Look closely at the walls and you will see rusted metal rings driven into the rocks.
Table Rocks is an accident of geology: a natural pool filled by the tide. It was opened as a swimming pool in 1894, when it was 20 feet long. In 1908 the rocks were blasted to extend it to 70 feet. Steps were cut to lead down to it. A rope rail was threaded through the iron rings. A changing hut was built that was later swept away by gales.
Old postcards show the pool thronged with people, the spectators clad in formal suits, hats and long dresses. This was a time when English seaside resorts were booming, but swimming in the sea wasn’t as easy as it is now and there were concerns about its safety. Still, swimming here must have been a thrilling experience, with the waves booming against the rocks only a few metres away. My mother swam in this pool, though I never did. It was used until 1971, the year I was born.
Just along the coast from Table Rocks, another pool lies abandoned. Tynemouth open air pool was specially built in 1925. It lies on the edge of the beach, snuggled into the cliffs and was filled by the tide. My grandfather helped to build this pool, often working at night between the tides.
These places are remnants of another age, before people abandoned the seaside resorts to take their holidays abroad. Swimming became very popular in the inter-war years and in the 1930s a craze for sun-bathing developed, so in the twenties and thirties more than 200 lidos were built in the UK. It wasn’t until the sixties that indoor leisure centres took over.
In the early nineties the pool closed, forgotten by all but the hardiest of swimmers. The pavilion was demolished and its rubble pushed into the pool. Covered by sand and rocks to make it safe, it was hoped that it would develop into a rock pool landscape, but it never worked. There is a stark beauty to its dereliction. The way the sea air has weathered the old barriers in rust, framing the sea beyond. The abandoned stairs climbing to nothing. The cracked steps haunted by ravens and gulls.
But when I see what has become of it, there is a sadness too. For I remember what this place once was. It had none of the comforts of indoor pools. The temperature of the water was that of the frigid north sea. Its taste was salt. The changing rooms were no more than concrete cubes. But swimming here, you could feel the sun and the air on your skin. I have been here when it buzzed with people, sprawled on the steps, splashing in the pool, frolicking by the fountain. And I have been here, cocooned at high tide, when it was almost empty. One of my last and most vivid memories is of swimming alone, the last person in the pool as a lightning storm rolled in.
But perhaps there is a future for these places after all. Outdoor swimming is becoming popular again. A group of local people are seeking funding to re-open Tynemouth open air pool. I hope that one day I will swim in it again.
The sadness of abandoned places has always appealed to my romantic inclination for nostalgia! You captured it beautifully – as always.
LikeLike
Thanks Bruce, me too 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
It always befuddles me when such charming places seem to (apparently simply) fall out of use.
The idea of a place being “you might never notice it was there” is magical — as are your words, always. Mega hugs!
LikeLike
Thanks Teagan – I can understand why they fell out of use, but I think things have changed – more people taking holidays at home, so I hope the project to revive Tynemouth is successful!
LikeLike
Ah, memories of things that once were and are no more…..
LikeLike
Indeed Cynthia, though with a possibility of a new future…
LikeLiked by 1 person
So silly we are. Sunbathing in fashion – sunbathing out of fashion. Outdoor swimming in fashion – outdoor swimming out of fashion! Good that the sun is still shining and the Ocean is still wild and free regardless of our ideas and trends.
Hope there is money and enthusiasm to restore the swimming pool to its old glory. Thank you for this wonderful excursion.
LikeLike
Glad you enjoyed the trip Inese, how things change and then come around again 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You’ve been lucky to enjoy this kind of pool, Andrea. The fresh air, the salt and the sun are far better than indoor pools which smell of chlorine and stale air.
I got to visit Saint Augustine in Florida and there is an old building, quite outstanding in fact, which used to be a hotel with a stunning indoor pool. Things have changed over the years and the pool is gone. But for people who have known it they can still see it through their memories. And they are even talks of ghosts. For these places that change still carry the stories of the past, I think.
Great photos to accompany this post, Andrea.
It would be awesome if the pool re-opened. For kids especially.
LikeLike
Thanks Evelyne, it was very different to an indoor pool (although a lot colder!!) These pools would tell a lot of stories.
LikeLike
For sure! 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, it is rather sad to see these outdoor places closed. May one reopen and you be able to swim it it again.
LikeLike
Let’s hope so, but if not, it was good to have had the opportunity to use one of them when it was open.
LikeLike
What a beautiful place. I felt the sadness of its abandonment in your photos and words. 🙂 Another poignant post, Andrea! Thanks for giving me another forgotten place to remember.
LikeLike
Thanks Kourtney, sad but lots of stories and lots of memories 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes so many memories there. If those walls could talk.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh Andrea, what a gorgeous post and place.
It’s so sad to see these pools die but I agree that they have a beauty in their dereliction.
LikeLike
They do Jean, I think you’d like this coast 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m sure I would!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
How awesome! Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have it open again. Loving your photos from across the pond (Atlantic).
LikeLike
It would be great to have it re-open, they’re full of atmosphere.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gorgeous photo’s and I love swimming in an outdoor pool, what fun hope it reopens.
LikeLike
Thanks and let’s hope so.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How wonderful if that pool could be refurbished and re-open! The spot looks beautiful. Perhaps you will swim in it again, and perhaps I will do so as well! How exciting. 🙂
LikeLike
It is a beautiful coastline and it’s exciting to think it may happen one day.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I really enjoyed this post, Andrea. The history behind the pools and your family ties to both…incredible. It is sad that the pools no longer exist.As for your photographs, well…they’re just amazing.
LikeLike
Thanks Jill, it is sad, but good that they still exist in the landscape to tell their stories 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I can see why you say there is a sadness there, considering the history… But I enjoyed learning more about the pools and even how your mom swam there before you were born. It’s fun to think about our parents being out and about before we were born 😉 Great photos too, Andrea!
LikeLike
Thanks Christy, it’s great to see you 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
You take the reader by the hand and take them on an intriguing journey of memory and imagination. Thoroughly enjoyed this and thanks for sharing 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks Rachael, I’m glad you enjoyed the journey 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
It reminds me of swimming in the North Sea off the coast of Norfolk when I was a child and it reminds me of how playful the seaside made my father. Generally speaking he wasn’t but I remember him writing silly things in the sand and then running away from us. It was as if his whole being relaxed and someone sillier and lighter was allowed to emerge.
LikeLike
I’m glad to prompt these happy memories Vicky!
LikeLike
What a thrill it would be to swim in a salt water pool like that; I do hope you’ll get to have that experience again soon! And I just realized that when you were 9, I was 8; no wonder we’re so often on the same wavelength (oh dear, that pun just sort of happened…) ^_^
LikeLike
I hope so too Sunshine! Finally given my age away…
LikeLiked by 1 person
That’s fascinating, Andrea. I much prefer swimming in outdoor pools and like the idea of them being filled with salt water. I hate the utilitarian feel of indoor pools, the acoustics, the stink of chlorine — not my sort of thing at all. It’s wonderful lying on one’s back floating and looking at the sky. I agree with you that there’s a beauty in those old neglected structures. People like their comforts too much these days with their heated pools and changing rooms. They’re missing out on the elements. Too soft by far. …Hee, hee, what an old dragon I sound!
LikeLike
It was a great experience swimming under the sky and yes, we must have been hardy! There used to be another outdoor pool in the middle of the town that started as a reservoir and that was where my poor mother had to learn to swim – at least I had the option of a heated pool for that 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I used to swim in the sea for 10 months of the year (albeit on the south coast). There’s something very exhilarating about cold water. Outdoor heated pools are okay when you’re in them, but you feel the cold ten times as much when you climb out of them! I apply this theory to when having showers in our unheated bathroom. If one has a hot shower, then the bathroom feels freezing when one’s drying oneself. But if one has a cold or tepid shower, there’s little difference, and one’s teeth don’t end up chattering!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Very cool to read about. I thought the water might be cold, but then wondered if, since it was separated from the sea and in it’s own container, if the sun heated it.
After swimming in bath water in the Gulf of Mexico, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to swimming in Lake Michigan. Brrr.
People love to swim outdoors here, but in the north, there is not much summertime to do so. In Florida, we used to do it for about 8 to 9 months out of the year.
Thank you for sharing this. It’s a shame those sea-pools didn’t last even 100 years, but who knows what the future holds.
LikeLike
Thanks Lori. The container didn’t make much difference, it was still freezing! But once you were in, it was fine, you just had to get past the first dip! I’m sure it was much more comfortable in Florida 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I used to love the outside sea water pool at Clifton, Bristol, and we used to go there a lot when I was a child. I think it has been refurbished and is very different today! Thanks for bringing back the memories, Andrea. 🙂
LikeLike
You’re welcome Wendy, I’m glad you got to experience something like this 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Awesome history-come-full-circle story with your own family history woven in. I like your pictures of the sea-created pool.
LikeLike
Thank you, it’s a very picturesque spot and it’s great to have a history with these places.
LikeLike
I’m looking forward to a week of swimming when we go to Florida. Splashing in water under the sun sounds like a dream about now!
LikeLike
I hope you enjoy it Jennifer – though it will be a lot warmer than these pools were 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Andrea. I’ve stopped in to publish and read awhile. Lovely words and photos – I wish to be there. One day perhaps I will visit. If you ever write a travelogue, I will be certain to read it. I remember you are Pisces. Happy birthday whether belated or upcoming 🙂 May I reblog this in early April when I make my next visit to WordPress?
LikeLike
Great to see you Laine, yes, the Pisces in me makes me a water baby 🙂 Thanks for the birthday wishes, it was about a fortnight ago. I’d be happy for you to re-blog it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Fantastic post, I love the melancholy of derelict places like this, it is a shame that these days a lot of people favour holidays abroad all the time, there is something to be said for the traditional British holiday and all its traditions. Formal suits by the pool should come back in fashion as well!
LikeLike
Thanks Ste, it is a shame these places aren’t valued more. Even when I was young my Dad would go to the beach in his shirt and suit trousers – we knew it was summer when he put on a summer jacket and cord shoes 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Perhaps we should have the first bloggers convention at one of these pools and get them loved and appreciated again!
LikeLiked by 1 person
In Vancouver BC there were a few of these kind of swimming pools too that looked exactly like the one at Tynemouth. One in an area called Kitsilano has been modernized and includes an outdoor summer theater called Showboat that has been in operation since 1935. Probably not as many people go abroad on west coast of Canada as they do in England, as it is so far from anyplace except USA and Mexico. lol. How interesting that your granddad helped build these and sad that they are now abandoned.
LikeLike
It’s great that the pool in Kitsilano has been modernised – at one stage they were going to concrete over Tynemouth to create an outdoor theatre, though without the pool.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I was a fish growing up. I was lucky enough to live in a house with an in-ground pool in the backyard. I remember how much time my father spent keeping it clean, and my sister and I would help with the “vacuuming” and scooping out all the poor little dead mice from the filters. That was the worst! But man, did I love having a pool in my own yard.
I don’t live too far from the ocean now, so that’s where I go for a swimming fix. But I’m a wimp and I can’t handle being in that water until August!
I love those pics of the abandoned pools. I really hope that the funding is granted to re-open Tynemouth. I think that would be special.
LikeLike
Thanks Kate. I would have loved my own pool although it obviously had its downsides! The sea is cold all year round here and the pools were no exception although they are looking at the possibility of geo-thermal heating if Tynemouth did re-open.
LikeLike
I too feel very wistful and nostalgic and probably sad when I see the “death” of these beautiful old experiences. And what a site!
LikeLike
Yes, they’re in a fantastic setting Luanne and much more of an experience than the average leisure centre!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel torn between the pull of the past and a need to give it all up, even the beauties, so that I don’t regret the future.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Nice pictures and memories Andrea. These abandoned lidos and baths have an air of pathos all right. There are several along Ireland’s east coast – Blackrock, Dun Laoghaire etc and there are periodic attempts to modernise them and bring them back into use.
And as a child in Birmingham outdoor pools and lidos were always crammed during the summer months though, as you say, the water was freezing. Without exception those places have long since gone.
LikeLike
Thanks Roy, Tynemouth was crammed when I was young but it understandably closed when people stopped using it. But I hope it does get revived – hopefully with the additional of geo-thermal heating 🙂
LikeLike
It’s been a long time since I’ve done any swimming, but when I was growing up, outdoor city pools were still very common. Now, I still see them, but they’re more at the neighborhood level where I live, and there are many more indoor facilities. For me, swimming and the outdoors go together.
LikeLike
There’s nothing like swimming outdoors and these were a safe option for families who didn’t want to brave the sea 🙂
LikeLike
What a great place for your mother to swim! Lovely pictures and musings:).
LikeLike
It would have been fantastic at the time Kristine, especially in those days when swimming as a pastime was a relatively new thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautifully written and just a magical concept of tide filled pools by the sea. Coral Gables, Florida has a stone pool but it is filled with chlorinated water. But, as a kid I found swimming in the stone pool exciting. I think I took Jr. Lifeguard training there in the 7th grade. I would have loved your seaside salt pools. An interesting post ….great text and photos!
LikeLike
Thanks Judy, they are much more magical than indoor swimming pools 🙂
LikeLike
Here in Florida being warm all year round most pools are outside, even big Olympic Sized ones. Not stone of course though. I avoid indoor pools because the air always seems to have too much chlorine, everything so chemically!! But the chance to swim in salt water with the pounding sea within ear’s reach…heaven!!!
PS: I raised my kids on swim teams and swimming is my sport of choice (even though my shoulder complains now)…so many pools!!! Thanks again for the wonderful view and information.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on From Midnight to Dawnlight and commented:
I am thoroughly pleased to reblog this wonderful post by Andrea Stephenson. Andrea always shines when writing about the natural world, and her latest short story Lightning Flowers published in Firewords – Issue 5 is an amazing piece of creative fiction.
LikeLike
I very much appreciate your re-blog and ongoing support Laine 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
My pleasure, Andrea 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your poignant words with relevant information made the place much more alluring.
LikeLike
Thanks so much for visiting and for your comment.
LikeLike
What a beautiful fascinating look back into history, a bye gone era that bought fun and enjoyment, back in the days when everyone enjoyed the Beautiful pleasures of seaside bathing.
Thoroughly enjoyable post.
http://aussieian2010.wordpress.com/
http://aussieemu.wordpress.com/
LikeLike
Thanks Ian, I appreciate your visit and your kind comments.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I hope your dream of swimming in the pool again will come true. I could feel the nostalgia and loss. The pictures didn’t make your words come alive, your words made the pictures come alive.
LikeLike
Thanks so much, I hope that dream will come true too 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting, Andrea, witnessing the changing of times and how they still warm us with fond memories. Hopefully, it will come full circle and come alive again. Thank you for sharing this with us.
LikeLike
Thanks Pat, I hope it will.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a beautiful piece. Brilliantly written. You got a new follower 🙂
LikeLike
Thank you Cesar and welcome!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Andrea what a precious memory. I have plenty of memories of outdoor pools by the ocean. Thankfully there is one in the next seaside town and we Aussie’s love the outdoors. But I can imagine the water temps would be a challenge. I hope they reopen it. I hate the smell of indoor swimming centres. Its much better outside. Love the photo of you.
LikeLike
Glad you still have one to enjoy Kath, but yes, yours is probably a bit warmer than these were!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great piece. Excellent photos capture the sadness of the passing of more innocent days and ways. I always remember going to swim in the open air pool at Pittenweem in Fife – an old holiday haunt of my family for a few generations. But, boy ….. was it cold! 🙂
LikeLike
Thanks Cee Tee, yes, I remember the cold 🙂
LikeLike