White Rock Baths Hastings 1972

supplied by Kate at Teddy Tinkers 134 London Road St Leonards. For antiques, collectibles, vintage clothing and more. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1410711675833278

Alan Esdaile… I can smell the chlorine!

Paul Coleman… Wow! That does bring back memories, including the smell of chlorine! Great pic. Never thought of seeing it in colour. Bexhill could do with a decent pool like that !  Some hope.!!

Carol Arnold… Aaaahhh loved it there!!!

Dave Nattress… I recall this scene well.  We used to come over from Bexhill to use this indoor pool as we only had the outside Egerton Park pool. Or the sea – which was probably about the same temperature as Egerton Park. I assume the water was heated?  Anyone know if it was?

Nicola Dobson… the outside pool in the park had no heating but was always a deep blue colour and also a deep pool

Phil Gill… That’s where I learned to swim, I can smell it from here. Lovely pic. The smaller pool in the eastern side was always great fun too. Now I want a powdery hot chocolate in a plastic cup from a crappy vending machine.

Russell Field… Phil, it was warm black current for me. Walking out to meet mum with albino eyes

Sheila Devine… Phil, ha yes the hot chocolate! Also the changing rooms with the wooden bench’s and stubbing your toes on the tiles – loved it!

Lloyd Johnson… We were always there in the 1950s….Alan Mitchell me and Johnny Mitchell….great fun….

Nadia Compagnone… If you left your clothes touching the floor in the changing rooms, they got soaked when somebody dived in!

Pauline Hillier… Nadia, It was such an exciting day out ! I can smell it ! Brilliant days !!

Sean Fox… Shame the council, didn’t do it up and instead opted for tiny pool at summer fields! it was such a great pool! Swam there with primary school and seagulls swimming club. Happy days!

Glen Collins… Sean, I remember my mum and dad taking me down there for swimming. Was a fantastic pool but those changing cubicles were freezing

Allan Mitchell… Awesome Picture I Remember Those Days Always In There Great Swimming Pool Thanks For Sharing This.

Lin Greenfield… Went twice a week

Gaynor Lewry… Loved it

Anne Phillips… Gaynor, so very sad it’s no longer there! Where exactly was it?

Kelly Hayes… Anne, it became an ice rink and is now The Source skate park

Jacquie Hinves… It was bloody cold!

Patrick Briggs… I spent so many days there loved it

Andy Warren… One of the reasons I came to Hastings as a kid.

Tracey Lawson… Andy, yes I remember too x

Ruthie Dufaur… Andy, loved our days out, traveling on the bus ….I remember them well …..what fun ! X

Albee Wright…Learnt to swim there… happy daze

Claire Melhuish-Durkin… Wowza what a loss

Sheila Maile… Went once a week from school

Debbie Hitchman Adams… I can remember this being very noisy and hot.. I actually hate indoor pools haha

Richard Turner… Loved going there with my nan in the 70s . Sadly it was falling to bits by then always remember the smell of chlorine. The treat of a hot chocolate after happy days

Kathy Wood… Girls changing on the right and boys on the left

Alan Esdaile… Well remembered. I think the small baths had the changing rooms or should I say torn curtains!! the other way round with the girls on the left and boys on the right, as you look in from the deep end?

Nick Bearkeeper Rowland… Those were the days. I spent a lot of time there.

Tony Addy… Learnt to swim there many moons ago

Lucy Pappas… My weekly visit always ended with hot chocolate!

John Mcewen… Where we had swimming lessons at junior school. Hated it. Never did learn to swim.

Chris Meachen… HESSA.. still got my certificates for width & length somewhere…

Jane Hartley… Chris, dear old Mr Yorkstone

Malcolm McDonald… Mr Friendly at Priory Rd 1979 he made me confident I could do my 1000mtrs medal 20 lengths in a certain time and I done it presented the medal in front of the whole school, great memories. Yeah done Hessa too.

Sarah Jane Roberts… Did up to gold honours in that pool, blowing into pyjama bottoms to stay afloat! Also split my head open doing a back flip into the pool. My dad had to collect me and take me to get stitches

Lynda Whatley… I remember those days!

Paul Bannister… I saw the picture, and immediately I can smell chlorine

Leigh Mitchell… I used to go there regularly with my Dad in the early 70s, wouldn’t be surprised if we’re in the photo somewhere!

Andy Coleman… Swimming there on Friday after school, with HESSA is my memory

Stuart Moir… I swam there when I first moved to Hastings .

Clare Bennett… I went swimming there as well!

Terry Pack… I swam for Bexhill Swimming Club and, like Dave Nattress, used to swim at White Rock during the winter when the Egerton Park pool was closed. Unlike him, I did swim in the sea every Sunday morning in all weathers! I loved the jukebox at WR and played Up the Ladder to the Roof and Nathan Jones every week

John Wilde.. Don’t forget the Sauna. Am I the only one that remembers the sauna?

Mike Waghorne… Went there a few times when I was a kid !

Pete Prescott… Yes I remember ! I went there only once. When I first came to Hastings.

Gerry Fortsch… The days of Robertsbridge youth club, a swim and then fish and chips from the Hollington chippie eaten on the coach on the way home, those were the days, bloody great.

Sean Michael Doran… I used go to as a kid , below the ground level! I I used go every day in summer

Janette Morfey… It was great. Always went there with the family when we were kids. Shame it was changed into other things

Steve Sutton… That was a great pool , so to was the bathing pool , although , it was bloody freezing

Pauline Sims… Certainly brings back some memories, not all happy! But I can just smell that chlorine, especially if the ground floor windows on the outside of the building were open – lovely

Paul Gray… I remember swimming with my school, Priory Road, usually in the winter and it was freezing. Changing rooms were grim and the floor always felt slimy. The only highlight was the vending machine which served hot chocolate or Bovril which came out of the same nozzle! LOL!
My aversion to public swimming pools began at the White Rock Baths and I avoid them at all costs!

Mick O’Dowd… Spent a lot of time here. I remember that chlorine smell as well. Went with both junior and Grammar School here. Personally I preferred the “small baths”.

Tracy Birrell… I loved it there.Learnt to swim at H.E.S.S.A.

Andy Clarke…I learnt to swim there. Was always down there as a kid. Still miss it now.

Chris Akister… is that the one that became an ice rink for a while?

Peter Beaney… Hot chocolate enough said

Andy Ives… I used to have swimming lessons there with a club called Barbarians

Karen Towner… Seagulls and Hessa – my second home from 7-12 years old – especially remember the galas – then secondary school and home work took over!

Simon Walsh… Went there a few weeks back…this is how it looks today….I could still smell the chlorine!

Pat Gerrish… Where I learnt to swim.

Carl Maynard… Much warmer than Summerfields and a proper 50m pool. Unfortunately I also remember the cockroaches in the changing rooms and the hot Bovril afterwards

Peter Brazier… I can understand what was unfortunate about the Roaches! But surly the Bovril wasn’t that bad? Personsly i miss the swiming bathes! I like thousands of other locals learned to swim there! Only Bad thing I remember is the Resident Pervert who liked to flash his bits at the Girls! (They would mostly point and laugh!)

Graham Matthews… Staplecross Primary school early 1960s we went once a week via Cooks Coaches from Westfield. Happy days.

Pauline Sims… Graham, Cooks Coaches also took us from Claverham, Battle

Alan Esdaile… Do you remember the mangle to squeeze out the water from your swimming costume and the massive hairdryers?

Lucy Pappas… YES!!

Sandie Carlyon… I was taught to swim at HESSA. Got all the 4 stripes on my cossie for different distances.

Graham Sherrington… Sandie, still have my certs and ribbons.

Alan Esdaile… I think the mangle used to look something like this, without the tray underneath???

Sandie Carlyon… Loved it. Learned to swim there.

Dawn… Tried to learn to swim with the school there but only ever sank. Sadly still can’t swim to this day. I remember me and a friend got left behind on one trip and had to make our own way back to school – no one even noticed. Terrible days was glad when it closed

Nicola Dobson… I learnt to swim in the smaller pool

Linda Turnbull… I think it was Miss Penny that taught us on Friday afternoons. We were also taken by coach from school.

Alan Esdaile… I remember a Miss Penny.

David Fairbrother… Linda, Yep, I remember those trips, with Bob HUXSTEP in charge !

Linda Turnbull… David, Would have been Rye. They had their own pool. It was Guestling I recall on Fridays

June Jeffery… Yep,this is where I was taught to swim. Then I joined Hessa, this was inthe 40s/50s.

Barry French… Was the water pumped from the sea? I recall the water having a salty taste & I think there may have been a sign which read “Warmed sea water for your swim” Great to hear people reminiscing about Cooks coaches, bought back memories of Mrs Tommset driving us screaming kids from Westfield to Claverham.

Lynda Caine… My dear old mum was a H.E.S.S.A member Pat (nee) Miller, her words great childhood memories, great friends, great times .

John Coleman… It was always cold in there!

Ray Barry… This photo brings back my teenage years swimming for Hastings & St Leonard’s ( Duckings) playing water polo. Anyone remember The Flip Flops, Derek Fitton and crew entertaining the crowd with there tricks off the diving boards.

Shirley Bartlett-Mead… Loved going on Saturdays

Jacqueline Marsh… I remember going there to watch my late cousin Alec Button swim in the Butterfly swimming race one year, I was only little and thought the place was enormous

Lynda Caine… Yes Ray Barry mum saids she remembers Derek Fitton .Does anyone remember Mrs Wingrave

Steve Donovan… Verruca central, plus some weird stuff growing in the changing rooms

Richard Brambles… (in reply to Lynda Caine) She also had a daughter, think her name was Mariam. Remember Ray, Ginger Powell, Mary and Derek Fitton, Kenny McBride and Malcolm Thame also names from the past.

Graham Sherrington… yes yes and HESSA I still have my swimmings certs and the coloured ribbons. Then a hot lemon at the cafe opposite in a glass cup with those brilliant metal handles!

Julie Findlay-jones… I bet I’m in there somewhere clinging to the side in terror

Micky Erends… Lloyd was that Alan Mitchell who lived in Clifton Road ?

Richard Brambles… a couple of other names from the 60s: David Vagg and Reg Holdstock.  I also remember coming across a female backstroker a couple of weekends, just swimming up and down……….Linda Ludgrove.

Sheila Maile… I used to go to sauna

Julian Deeprose… Learned to swim there while still at West St Leonards Primary school. Jim Ryper was the instructor, he was armed with a ring of hosepipe with a rope tied to it. You put your arms through the ring and he dragged you along. I was so proud getting the certificate for my first width unaided Then the hot chocolate from the machine to help thaw you out. Happy memories.

Jeanette Wilde… We used to travel there on a double decker bus from woodlands girls school once a week.

Geoffrey Wilde… I jumped in to that pool, in my pajamas.

Ray Barry… I spent many a happy hour in the White Rock Baths, pleasure and competitive swimming.

Lynda Caine… In reply to Richard Brambles, thank you, just spoke to mum a few more names to add Tommy Mather his dad was a diving instructor , Evelyn Wood , Ian MacLean, his sister Dawn ,and a Geordie called Trevor unfortunately she cannot remember his surname. As she has said great times at the White Rock pool and at the bathing pool happy memories of growing up in Hastings.

Malcolm McDonald… Won my 1000 meters medal there with Mr friendly at Priory Rd.

Candy Clark… Bring it back.

Andrew Clifton… I learned to swim there, with the Priory Road school and the Barbarian Swimmers club.

Jacquie Hinves… The coldest swimming pool ever!! Alice Cooper was at no 1 with “schools out for summer” Weirdos in the cabin changing rooms and trying to do practice swims for the county! Happy days!

Pete Grange… Jacquie, I did all my life saving awards in there and my first 1 mile swim x

Jacquie Hinves… Pete, in that cold water!!

Pete Grange… lol yer it was fine the polar bears helped me along x

Eric Harmer… I hated it , cold , smelly and made to jump in of the side by Miss Penny ? I think.

Andrew Clifton… Eric, yes rings a bell with me as well. I went in the evening, with the Barbarian Swimming club.

Susan Richardson… Eric, masses of flies in there! And the changing rooms…

Derek Johnson… Was she on the Money?

Peter Mitchell… Eric, Miss Penny taught me when I was 7 or 8 in 1953 small baths

Gillian Stuart… Eric, yes she made me jump in the deep end, had to be fished out with a pole. Petrified ever since.

David Bastable… (in reply to Lynda Caine) I was there too with your mum. Mr Davy taught me to swim breastroke I could never swim anything else Mrs Wingrave and her daughter taught the Ducklings swimming club later The Seagulls It was cold and you had to be kicked out of the hot showers. Your mum Bubbles was an excellent swimmer and such a lovely girl. In a way those days there shaped my life Swimming Lifesaving and friends

Eric Harmer… I hated it. Cold and Miss Penny made us jump in of the side. It smelt of Chlorine too.

Jude Montague… Fab photo

David Martin… I remember it well, Seagulls Swimming Club with Mrs Addrison

Pauline Lindsay… David, also remember HESSA xx

Jacqueline Hillier… Yes Great Memories for me, started with Ducklings, then H.e.s.s.a.and Seagulls. Still got my swimming certificates and life saving badges. Even happier memories of our wonderful bathing pool which was a crime to demolish

David Bastable… (in reply to Lynda Caine) I think your mum came to my parents house on a couple of Fridays along with Ian and Dawn Maclean ,Dick Lingham ,Evelyn Wood, Tom Mather, Janice Ward

Lynda Caine… (In reply to David Bastable ) Yes mum has mentioned you she’s so pleased to hear your comment . As she has said great times carefree days

Gerry Fortsch… I used to go with Robertsbridge Youth Club on a coach and have fish n chips from the Hollington chippie on the way back.

Jill Ireland… I used to go there