I can only just about remember the Hoylake Outdoor swimming pool that used to be on the site of our new lifeboat station. I moved to Meols in 1976 and can remember riding my bike around the outside of the old baths with my mates.
I’ll look for some other photos another time but I have managed to stumble upon some old photos that the BBC has here that I thought I’d mention to you. They’re not great quality but worth a look anyways!
Who was that lady I wonder? And was it referred to as Hoylake Lido?
As a kid in the ’60s and ’70s I spent much of my summer at the Hoylake Baths. Lots of kids were given ‘contracts’ (season tickets) which cost only a few quid and that was the main summer entertainment. Regulars of the south facing ‘back wall’ developed fantastic tans and the ‘killer’ slide and diving stack there were realy scary. The ‘curly’ slide and the small kids’ slide were less daunting. The baths opened in mid May and closed in mid September. The temperature was displayed on the front gate – perhaps as low as 52 F in the early season but it could get up to 84F in a heat wave. It was the most wonderful pool of filtered seawater and huge at 70×50 yards. As a vyoung boy the Holake Amateur Swimming Club met there and hot ribena and oxo were served on the roof terrace to warm us up after swimming.
In a hot summer there would be long queues at the weekends – people literally poured off the trains from B’head and Liverpool – but the Hoylake Urban District Council neglected it badly but at least kept it open. When Hoylake was subsumed into the new Wirral MBC in 1974 it was only a matter of time until they found an excuse for closing it. The 1976 storms which did some minor damage were cited as the reason for the council closing the pool. However, an extraordinairy community protest with demos and angry public meetings in the YMCA public hall led to the council grudgingly agreeing to let local residents take control. The Hoylake Outdoor Pool Trust was set up and local residents voluneered to get the pool painted and open for the ’76 season. It was a triumph anmd there was a wonderful community spirit. People were fighting for their town and a way of life. I was only 16 but spent every free moment labouring and painting the pool and in the summer I worked as a pool attendant and in the ice cream kiosk by the Hoyle slipway.
The Trust went on to take over another abandoned asset, the Hoylake Parish Hasll in Grove Place, and through the Job Creation Schemes run at the time to massage the unemployment figures the resources were found to undertakle a full renvation of the pool and the hall. The Miss Merseyside competition was held there every summer and iot was popular for synchronised swimming. Sadly a run of bad summers and the end of various funding streams contributed to the renamed Hoylake Pool & Community Trust hit the buffers in the mid ’80s. The rest is history. It was the last nail in the coffin of Hoylake as a small seaside resort town. Only a few years before the council hired deck chairs on the prom and there were Punch & Judy shows and the prom would be crammed on a hot summer’s weekend. The Wirral Council’s neglect extended to the Meols Prade Gardens which had been beautifully kept and Queen’s Park which are in a disgraceful state to this day.
Let’s hope that the plans to smarten up the promenade come to fruition.
To answer your question, the baths were never known as the lido but were eferred to as Hoylake Outdoor Pool during the Trust’s period of control. However, now that so few are left nationally there has been renewed interest in the lidos around the country most of which like Hoylake date back to the ’20s and ’30s. Some have been restored and even a few new ones built.
One thing is for sure the demise of Holake Baths marked the end of an era in Hoylake, outdoor swimming is a way of life not just a form of exercise.
Hi Peter – thanks for a great comment!
You’ve reminded me that my mates called the big slide the ‘killer’ – I’d completely forgotten that. Wouldn’t suit me at all as I’m a dreadful swimmer!
I might be getting my hands on some more info about the baths in a week or three – hopefully I’ll get some photos to scan and publish.
John
Hi, I remember the baths well. I was born in 1946. They used to be packed when I was young. I remember the fountains and the diving board. I can also seem to remember going with the school to swim in the winter. Freezing. I well remember learning to swim there. Self taught can u believe. It was definitely a good place to be in the summer.
I bought an entry pass for Hoylake Baths in the summer of 1976 – it was the heatwave year and the year of the millions of ladybirds. I used to ride my bike from West Kirby down the tip lane, past the station to the baths most days. I met Liz Nolan there. She lived in Alderley Road and became a lifelong friend. I was about 11 at the time and fell madly in love. I have many great memories of the “Killer” and “Curly” slides. We used to dare each other to go down the killer on your back, head first. Good times and a memorable summer. Sadly I think a year or two later it was closed.
Yes, the 1976 ladybird plague was quite something! Hoylake Prom looked like someone had covered it in tomato ketchup and they crunched as you rode yr bike over them. I remember the pool had to be closed due them being in the water.
Born in 1959 I grew up in Hoylake Pool,spending nearly every waking moment there.I learned to swim there at the age of four and from that moment on I was the new family mermaid.Both my mum and aunt had been titled such in the 30′s and 40′s!!!.There was always a great fight to get the No1 Swimming Contract each year! In the 70′s my mum worked for the trust keeping the books and doing the wages in the office(also later at the Parish Hall).
It was so sad when it closed and worse when it was demolished.Now I read that the library is to close as well.I am not ‘home’ very often as I live in Scotland now,but everytime I return I hardly recognise my lovely home town but I still love it and miss it!
we had swimming lessons from the parade school, it was freezing really freezing i did everything to get out of them, but out of school i loved the hot ribena, and loved looking down on the ponies takiing rides.
Having been to taught to swim at the baths at the age of two I have loads of memories.Dad(Geoff Fenney)both swam and played water polo for the club and so many Saturday evenings where spent on visits to different clubs as either a swimmer or a cheerleader for the club!
The baths had unique atmosphere, the design was absolutely unique and it was an experience that later generations will never understand.
I have a copy of the original photo from the foyer, where can I send it so that it can be shared by all?
Keren
Do you have a sister Anne? If my memory serves me right we were at Meols school together- and you lived at “Sea Fever” in Dovepoint Rd.
Am I right?
Sue
Yes – I am Keren’s sister Ann. I too have many very happy memories of Hoylake Pool. It was to place to be in the summer. I could never understand however the logic of shutting at lunchtime and then re-opening again in the afternoon!!
I remember too the fact that we did our life saving exams so that we could have a free contract for the year!!
Hello Karen, it’s been a year or two since we last spoke (about 50 I think). Any idea what happened to Penny? Since we last met I was married, emigrated to Canada, three children, obtained a BSc, MBA and DBA. I have been GM/CEO of several, companies. My family and I have lived for several years in Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico and Ireland finally returning to Canada where I took a position as CEO of London Hydro, a utility company, in Ontario, retiring a couple of years ago.
You?
Hope your mum and Dad are still around and well.
bermarg@rogers.com
I have all the Press Cuttings and Minute Books etc for the Pool as I was Secretary of the Trust for all it’s time.I worked with Ivy and we had lots of tales to tell about Job Creation Schemes with the Manager Billy Manson.If anyone would like to reminisce they are welcome to come to Melrose Hall, Hoylake, my present venture and view it all.
We have on the wall there the Plaque awarded to The Trust by Merseyside Civic Society for saving the Pool which I rescued before the demolition.
I have fond memories of the hoylake pool having spent most days during the summers each year at the pool. I remember the white back wall with the slightly elevated floor that we all aimed for with our towels to sunbathe. I moved to London in during the 80′s and always tried to descibe the size of the pool. I was visitng my family in meols a copule of weeks ago and managed to buy a book that has a great photo of the pool. It was only when my husband saw that photo that he realised why it was such a special part of my childhood. I feel honoured and fortunate to be brought up in such a wonderful community with great facilities like the baths and the YMCA. How sad i am now when i visit and wonder what on earth the current children are doing with their summers i am sure they are most certainly mossing out.
I worked at the pool in 1977 after leaving school , I worked as a labourer whilst the pool was being prepared before opening and then as one of the pool attendants , I used to travel from Pensby on my push bike to get there, i met a young girl called lizzie who had long brown curly hair ,she was very beautiful and I have never forgotten her, if you are out there liz get in touch? I still have a photo of us to this day. I also remember the cottrial brothers, Dolphin davies, steve corrigan. Good Times!!