I don't know why, on one of the coldest days I've ever experienced, swimming pools became the subject of the day while I was out in Grange on Saturday with Mark. I can only think it was the repeated theme of hauntigly derelict looking places, still showing obvious signs of once being something quite special.We'd picked a ridiculous day for walking through a seafront town. I've no idea how despite living in Barrow-in-Furness, we still managed to so underestimate the bitterness of the chill.
Having seen pictures of the old open-air swimming pool on the seafront, I could vaguley remember the place from childhood. I remembered an outdoor pool with a smaller side pool and a pool for toy boats nearby. (I actually only learned the word 'lido' after some of these pictures caught my eye)! 28dayslater and photoaddiction have some of the best pics.
The one above the abandoned lido as we approached it from the Esplanade. The sea wall curves out around it and apparently the waves used to lap up against the back of it while bathers happily splashed in the pool! No such chance of a dip these days however.
Having been closed since 1993 the remains of the lido are in a bit of a mess, but still require very little imagination to visualize what once was. Originally built in 1932, it has a definite feel of the era. I'm only a little surprised the demand for outdoor bathing kept it going until the nineties!
You can see the water is frozen somewhat in the foreground, leaving the debris is lying on, as opposed to floating in, the pool. New development plans indicate conversion of the arched structure above into an RSPB viewing platform.
We were on the lookout for the spooky depth sign I'd seen in one of Dempsey's pictures on 28DL:
Found it:
Still there, it was peering spookily up through the ice-glazed depths.
The rest of the pics are in the flickr set:
It seems the 'new' indoor pool didn't fare well either, lasting just three years open before closing in 2006, despite it's critical acclaim and award-winning design. It now looks even sadder and ghastlier than the lido. (Or maybe that's just because it reminds me of a building from my favourite horror film, 1978 thriller 'Coma' -but that's another story / blog post!)
I know, I really should take Mark on some better days out!
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