Name: Cleveland Pools Location: Bath Current status: Closed, restoration plans agreed Date built: 1815 – 1816 Architect: Believed to be John Pinch the Elder who designed the neighbouring cottages Listed building status: Grade II* Lead organisation: Cleveland Pools Trust
Description
A Bath stone miniature crescent shape incorporating a cottage flanked on each side by six original changing rooms faces on to a large pool built in 1815. A later children’s pool is believed to date back to 1852.
Owned by the local authority since 1900, the pool was closed permanently in 1978 and became a trout farm briefly in the 1980s. The campaign to save the site from sale to potential developers was launched in 2004 and a drive to launch the re-opening of the pools as a community facility was started in 2010.
Facilities
When restored there will be heated swimming April to September in the main pool and cold water swimming in winter. A children’s pool will be created from the Victorian extension to the Georgian pool and there will be an on-site café.
The old children’s pool will be covered over to provide seating space but its footprint will be retained for potential restoration in the future.
Notable facts
Cleveland is Britain’s only surviving Georgian lido.
Built on the banks of the river Avon after nude bathing in the river was banned in 1801 by the Bathwick Water Act. A subscription scheme was started to raise the money to build an exclusive and secluded pool for the ‘gentlemen of Bath’ with Bath’s smallest crescent of changing rooms. The demand for a separate pool for ladies followed a few years later.
Current plans
Fundraising to provide match funding to top up a grant of £4.7m awarded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund to get this exciting restoration project underway.
