Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Alexandra Park Open Air Swimming Bath
Open-air swimming baths were quite popular in the three old boroughs that now make up Haringey. But the first to be opened was in Alexandra Park in 1875, then, still part of Tottenham borough. But its history seems to have been lost and what is available seems to be poorly researched. So I've added some information, images, newspaper articles and maps below.
Opened in the spring of 1875, the baths were built in the east of the park between the race track and the New River Reservoir. They were a private enterprise within what was still a privately owned park.
Advertisement from the Hampstead & Highgate Express, July 1876
Excerpt from Ordnance Survey Map 1876
Alexandra Park, Swimming Bath, 1926
The baths were initially popular but apparently quickly went downhill. There were complaints about its cleanliness, and even reports of visiting circus elephants and dogs bathing in it!
In the early 20th Century, the Park was taken into public ownership by a consortium of north London boroughs. A campaign led by the Alexandra Park Swimming Club to improve the baths influenced the Metropolitan Borough of Wood Green (established in 1888) to improve matters. In June 1907, the Council reopened a refurbished baths, now named the Wood Green Open Air Swimming Baths.
Report on the Re-opening, Tottenham & Edmonton Weekly Herald, June 1907
The Baths soon after the re-opening
Aerial shot with Baths marked, 1923 ©Britain From Above
Swimmers limber up at Alexandra Park Open Air Pool, 1926
The baths remained a popular facility for local people - even opening on winter mornings!
Kelly's Directory, 1938
The advent of war in 1939 led to the Palace and Park being pressed into service as a home for Belgian refugees. All amusement activity was halted. Sadly the baths never reopened. The Ordnance Survey map surveyed less than fifteen years after the war shows the pool buildings as ruins.
Ordnance Survey Map Excerpt, 1954
There were four other open-air pools in the three boroughs:
Durnsford Road Lido in Durnsford Road N22 which opened in 1934 and closed in 1988. The Sunshine Garden Centre now occupies the site. Most of the original architecture is still in today at the Garden Centre, with the changing rooms still in use as the potting sheds. American Olympic swimming champion and 'Tarzan' actor Johnny Weissmuller once visited the pool. Closing in 1988.
Rather confusingly, the new baths wer also referred to as the Wood Green Baths, Wood Green Lido, Bounds Green Lido and Durnsford Road Baths.
The first of the pictures below (which I originally mistakenly attributed as being a picture of the baths near Wood Green Station) is labelled Wood Green Baths.
Below is the entry for these baths in the Kelly's Directory for 1938. I think the Wood Green name was promoted by the Council because it was they who built them.
Kelly's Directory, 1938
Durnsford Road Lido, 1937
Durnsford Road Lido, 1937
Tottenham Lido in Lordship Lane N17 which opened in 1934 and closed in 1985. The pool was designed to be heated - making it the sixth pre-war lido in London to be originally heated. The site was redeveloped as Lido Square.
Tottenham Marsh Swimming Pool N17 which opened in 1905 in the Marshes near Stonebridge Lock on the River Lea. It was demolished in 1939.
The Hornsey Park Open Air Lido - Park Road – the Municipal Swimming Pool was initially opposed by residents was opened in June 1929.
Hornsey Baths / Park Road Lido, c 1930
All the above is sourced from original research, mainly using primary documentation.
Tags for Forum Posts: wood green
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Lydia Walter on
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A "muscleman" parading by the fountain? I have no memory of Eddie Pengelly - was he a local? Was he famous?
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Permalink Reply by Richard Woods on
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Durnsford was well known as one of the places Olympic divers could use for practice. We at the HJ photographed there regularly. At one time the top board was about 16 feet (or maybe nominally 5 metres) but I believe it had to be lowered due to the available depth of water.
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Don't want to be presumptuous and respond on Richard's behalf!!! But did want to say it was called Durnsford Road Lido by all of my family.
And Richard... I remember the Hornsey Journal (HJ) most fondly. It was a regular weekly paper in my mum and dad's home and I once won 5 shillings (postal order!) for having a poem printed in the Junior Journal section of the paper!!!
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Hi - I was at the HJ from 1959 (very late) to about April 1964. I seem to recal that in mjy time the Junior section was edited by first Frances Farrow, who was a very sharpand stylish young lady wearing Marj Proops glasses and who went on to work indeed on the Mirror. Later it was I think Lesley Downes,( a very much more if I may be so rude to Frances; I would not have dared back then!) genteel and even civilised young women.
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Somewhere, amongst my very many years of paperwork, I have the HJ page with my printed poem. If I ever get the time I will try to find it to see which of your illustrious colleagues were editor. I think my poem would have been printed around 1965/66 so it may have been post your time at The Journal. Special times and happy memories eh?
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They were special. To be honest not always for good reason but well remembered now. I lived in Frobisher Road in Harringay, right by the the Regal Cinema and across from Duckett's Common. For a London boy I had huge advantages!
The ladder is and was an extraordinary place although London has many such 'integrated' estates from the Edwardian era. I confess to a bit of silly vanity publishing if you are interested:
http://www.woodses.co.uk/life-on-the-ladder.html
On the night picture Ducketts Common is to the right, where the roads are slightly shorter. The first from the left is Frobisher. The bright area is Turnpike Lane bus and tube stations.
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Thank you, that made fascinating reading; a real trip down memory lane. I remember seeing Father Christmas at Barton’s each season. I saw Dr Who and the Daleks in the cinema at the end of your road - 3 times over when films ran continuously! Dr Posner, surgery at the Duckett’s Common end of Sydney Road, was also my family doctor. I fondly remember his home visits. I grew up on Raleigh Road and attended North Haringey Primary School; to this day the thought of fish pie school dinner fills me with horror. My cousin lived in your Road, I think she lived at number 103, (though the number doesn’t tie in with the number and location of your house), an only child, she lived with her parents their surname being Resch.
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We called it Durnsford Road Pool but it was a lido really, as Lydia says. We lived quite a way from it so it was not 'our' pool - that was Hornsey.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I just received an email from an ex-resident, Alan Butler, who wanted to share the Friends of Durnsford Road, Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/groups/2227796473936951/
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