Lido

The pool was formed by a reinforced concrete wall spanning a small inlet between two small rocky outcrops, side walls were built later. There was no lining of any kind, the slope from the shallow to the deep end was the natural lay of the beach, and was floored with the natural shingle. There was an inlet/outlet pipe fitted in the wall which allowed the pool to be filled on the incoming tide and gradually emptied on the the falling tide. I would imagine that it would, at one time, have had a valve on it so that the pool would remain filled at low tide. The water was just ordinary sea water and not treated in any way.

The photograph below is quite an early one, as later on a filtration plant was added, and a three tiered diving board was built over on the far side at the deep end. Also further in towards the shallow end there was a slide for the children, and on the near side a paddling pool for toddlers was formed.

The photograph below shows the Lido as it was in about 1938, just before the whole area was requisitioned by the War Department. By this time, diving boards and a slide had been provided. A filtration plant had also been installed, the sloping side of which can be seen on the extreme left of the photograph.

At the outbreak of the Second World War the whole area was requisitioned by the War Office, as being of strategic importance. There had been an Army Observation Post just in front of the holiday camp for quite some time before the outbreak of war which was later equipped with the new revolutionary invention, Radar. Gun emplacements were built on the lower levels, which were manned by the Royal Navy. The swimming pool was used by them for recreational purposes.

After the war the pool gradually fell into dilapidation, but we had many happy hours there as children using the, by then, heavily rusted diving board framework which had long given up its springboards to the elements. Also by the diving boards was a reinforced concrete structure,which had contained the filtration plant, just a single compartment with a doorway, and sloping outside walls, looking a bit like something from an Egyptian tomb.