Bathurst Pool, Lydney in the 1930s.

This swimming pool, located between Lydney and Aylburton, was given to the district in October 1920 by Charles Bathurst (who became Viscount Bledisloe in 1935) .
In the background are 2 of the chimneys of the Lydney Tinworks.

Lydney Grammar School used this pool for swimming lessons.

The stone reads "This swimming bath was presented to the inhabitants of Lydney & Aylburton by Charles Lord Bledisloe K.B.E. on the occasion of the coming of age of his elder son the Hon Benjamin Ludlow Bathurst 2nd October 1920".

It is now (2016) run by volunteers and "The Friends of Bathurst Pool". The web site can be reached from this link.

Peter Essex added (November 2010): "... I shiver at the sight. If I recall its on what was then the main A48 not far beyond the Cross towards Aylburton on the left. As a feeble Londoner spending school holidays with my grandparents in Lydney I wasnt at all accustomed to cold-water open-air pools. You'd get out shaking throughout with a horrible cold pain on the top of your head if it had been under the surface and on a breezy day you'd have swallowed leaves. But looking back now this was all part of growing up. If the pool is still in use then Im pleased because it means health and safety wimpage hasnt yet entirely suppressed character formation".

Lesley Parker added (March 2017): "... I spent many hundreds of hours here in the 19'50s and 19'60s. It was 3d to get in, or 10/6d for a season ticket. Each spring we would eagerly anticipate the pool's opening, and try to get Season Ticket No. 1 (never succeeded; Nos 2 and 3 were the nearest). As it was then it would never pass today's H & S regulations, but we didn't mind that you couldn't see the bottom between the 4ft and 6ft depths, or that the water-pipe that acted as a railing around the insider perimeter of the pool was rusty and even broken in places. Or that if you weren't careful your foot would go through the holes in the three-tier diving board, or that there were thousands of slimy leaves and even frogs in the deep end. We loved standing underneath the two waterfalls at the shallow end. Apart from going there after school and at weekends, we'd go there officially with Mr Meredith (Lydney C of E headmaster), and at LGS swimming was every other week, alternating with tennis. My friend Rita McCollam and I would sometimes conveniently 'forget' our tennis gear on tennis days and take our bathers instead, so as to be sent to the pool with the alternating group! Happy days!".

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