History: Giant diving boards at old lidos

Jonny69

Jonny69

Jonny69

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I was reading a post on another forum by a chap who had been on a tour of the historic Croydon airport. The buildings still remain in the middle of what is now an industrial estate and inside they have restored it so it is almost exactly as it was in the 1940's. He signed his thread off with a picture of a giant diving board in the middle of a garden centre in Purley, just up the road from the old airport:

purley2.jpg


The story behind it is there used to be a lido where the garden centre now stands, which was closed in 1979. A leisure centre replaced the lido but for some reason or other the diving board was never demolished with the lido and it now stands, restored, in the garden centre.

I tried to find a bit more information about it so I could go and have a look, because it's quite local to me, and while I was out wandering the net I noticed a number of lidos had HUGE diving boards in them!

This one was in Dagenham but is now completely demolished:

leys2.jpg


I think it's completely fascinating as I assumed all lidos were just plain outdoor pools like the ones in Brockwell Park and Guildford. I didn't know some of them were so amazingly styled, with that sort of pre-googie architecture. They must have looked amazing when they were built in the 30's, no wonder they were so popular.

A bit more information here, but it's not actually much help.
 
If Crystal Palace ever opens again there's a 10m board in there. I'm too scaredycat to jump from that high though :cool:
 
It's a shame that there aren't more of these 20s / 30s style lidos about. Not that I would ever jump from one that high but I really like the style of them.
 
Went there a few times as a kid and saw some bloke get carted of in a ambulance after doing a belly flop from the top board

ps you had to be brave to swim there as the water was ice cold even in the summer
 
We still have an outdoor pool here, I tend to avoid it since due to some natural phenomenon it only just makes it's above freezing point in early June.

The diving board is still in place, but the ladders have been removed.

There's a picture here, http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/70654

EDIT: Last time I visited which is probably not far off 20 years ago, the ladder to the top had been removed, but the ladder to the lower section was still there.
 
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The only Lido I've ever been to is the one in Guildford. Not even sure how old that one is, but there was no giant diving board when I went there (late 80's/early 90's), I'm not sure if there ever was or not..

Cool post though, although you would NEVER catch me jumping off one of those though lol.
 
I swear southampton used to have a big lido, early 90's waaayyy before Quay's, I can't find any information about it though :(
 
Sp00n said:
I swear southampton used to have a big lido, early 90's waaayyy before Quay's, I can't find any information about it though :(
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Southampton had a big swimming complex called "Centre 2000" which had two (three?) flumes going outside the building. It wasn't a lido though (I thought lidos were only outdoor?), unless there's another one.

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Burnsy2023 said:
Southampton had a big swimming complex called "Centre 2000" which had two flumes going outside the building.
Click to expand...

Ah you are correct, my bad.

It closed down for years, loads of myths about why it closed down back when I were a lad, mostly death related.
 
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