white rock baths

White Rock Baths Hastings 1950’s

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photo © Hastings Public Library

Paul Cullen… Learnt to swim in this pool

Carol Arnold… So did I

Steve Cooke… So did I.

Graham Sherrington… Yes I still have my HESSA Certs and the ribbons

Roger Simmonds… Wow I remember it!

Daryl Perkins… School swimming lessons!!

Ian Johnson… Daryl, same

Jane Collins… Swimming lessons there

Angela Frances Gardner… Swam there in the 60s during the winter and in the summer at the bathing pool in west st Leonards

Jacquie Hinves… And it was so cold!! I remember being there when Alice Cooper was blaring out “Schools out for Summer “and this very creepy man hovering around our changing rooms. 1972?? I would have been 13/14.

Russell Field… So did I, hot blackcurrent 2p from the machine.

Carol Acott… Went there with school but Mrs Penny couldn’t teach me to swim….I still can’t because it gave me a fear of the water…what a wimp lol …

Eric Harmer… t was cold and smelly , Miss Penny was the teacher , we had to jump in off the side I hated it.

Bernard Baker… I caught a verruca in this place in 1972 and it took a year to get rid of it!!

Alan Esdaile… Bernard, remember the strong over powering disinfectant small square pool we walked through. The water was a funny colour and had bits floating in it. No wonder we all got verruca’s!

Paul Bannister… Oh how I hated it. Can still smell the chlorine. Ugh

Lynda Whatley… Memories memories

Linda Gowans… My mother taught me to swim there (hot chocolate and biscuits afterwards), winter of 1955, years before I had to go to a school lesson (only once!). Got verrucas on both feet, very painful for weeks until we visited my grandma, who fetched an old tin of ointment from the back of a cupboard. Cured them overnight.

Carol Acott… Linda, good old gran.

Jane Collins… Linda, I also got a verucca there. Probably 1960 when we had swimming lessons. If we were hovering at the side we got pushed in. Hated it! Awful things. We had to kneel down in a row before going in the pool for a foot inspection

Peter Brazier… I actually miss swimming there!

 

White Rock Baths Hastings 1972

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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!

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White Rock Baths outside open space – charity event 1953

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photo © Hastings Public Library

Alan Esdaile… Jazz band playing at the outside open space at the White Rock Baths. Raising money for cancer in 1953. It’s interesting that this space was used for many years to raise money for various charities. I remember they had roll a penny slides and various buckets to throw money into. Anyone else remember this?

Peter Ellingworth… I do indeed.

Jim Breeds… I more than remember it, I helped out with it for one week every year in the 1960s when my Dad had the use of the well to raise money for his charity.

Colin Bell… I’d forgotten about those penny slides, that’s jogged some memories!

Alan Esdaile… Jim, this must have been the main place for raising money for local charities at the time. I can also remember, that chemist shops always had a charity box outside for national charities?

Jim Breeds…I don’t know if it was the main place, but it was hugely important for the charities that managed to get allocated their week in the well during the summer. My Dad’s charity also raised funds by selling “roses” on Alexandra Rose Day. I used to help with that too – we all used to stand on street corners selling the roses (cloth roses on pins) from a tray rattling the collecting tin at passers-by. A bit like poppy day. For the well over the baths, we used to collect coins thrown down by people. We had to take our own ladder each evening to be able to climb down in!

Steve Cooke… Yes, I had forgotten about these.

How it looks today…

Colin Bell… Looked a damn sight better back then!

 

 

 

 

White Rock Baths and Bathing Pool Hastings & St Leonards-on-Sea signatures of swimmers 1957.

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Supplied by Lynda Caine

Lynda Caine… mum has given me this. All the people who have signed there names are people from Hastings who used the pool they would all been teenagers then who used the White Rock Baths and bathing pool.

Alan Esdaile… Do you recognise any names?

Chris Baker… Sadly, not one! Mind you, I almost never went except with the school

Graham Sherrington… I remember No Cut Off Jeans!!! the bleach in the water or something with the dye in the jeans.

Nick Warren… Ian MacLean was later the one string box base player with the Fieldstone Boys, before Danny O’Farrell, and he is still around going strong

Chris Chandler… Nick, had lunch with him today!

Nick Warren… Chris, lovely guy

Graham Sherrington… Derek Fitten 5th down on the left?? my sister and Derek where swimmers the GIBB and GABB trophies

David Bastable… I presume that was Brenda?

Graham Sherrington… yes sir

Colin Harmer… A few years younger than Derek Fitten but spent many happy hours training and swimming with him at Bathing Pool and White Rock Baths. He was a ‘larger than life’ character.

Ray Barry… I remember Ginger Powell I think breaststroke was main stroke. Derek Fitton what a guy he was the main man of the Flip Flop display team.

David Bastable… That is amazing!! Thank you So many people I knew and swam with I wonder where they are now. The names I know and swam with are Ian Maclean Tom Mather Ginger Powell Derek Fitton Dick Lingham John Gambrill David Bastable which is me!

Ian Maclean… The Roy Fransen aqua show was a tremendous display of high board crazy diving by very talented divers. Riding bicycles off of the 10 metre board, double dives etc. culminating in Pegleg, a one legged chap,diving from the top of a long step ladder into fire on the water. There were also poolside antics involving the public and the Ducking chair, log rolling displays etc. culminating in a fantastic firework display. Never forgotten, and never to be repeated sadly. I remember all of the names, still in touch with some of them.

Paul Knight… Learned to swim at the White Rock Baths in the late 50s whilst at school

Lynda Caine… (In reply to Dave Bastable ) Mum Pat (Bubbles) at 81 now is living in Dover she has had a busy life as a landlady of quite a few pubs from Hastings to Dorset and then finally retiring but there’s one place what remains in her heart, is growing up in Hastings as she saids in her own words, those were the days.

David Bastable… It was the swimming club trip to Guernsey when I was twelve years old to compete against the local club that led me to move there some forty years ago. I remember Bubbles very well Lynda

Lynda Caine… Dave, yes mum had said you had moved to Guernsey she’s so pleased to hear your comments ,great memories .

Lynda Caine… (in reply to Ian MacLean ) Mum is over the moon to hear your comment and the mention of Dawn after all these years, as she has said great times growing up in Hastings, good friends remembering them always.

David Bastable… Your mum is in the photo I just posted next to Tom Mather

Lynda Caine… Yes mum said thank you Dave as your photo is nice and clear .

 

 

Trolley bus outside White Rock Baths supplied by Ted Cogger

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Supplied by Ted Cogger

Ted Cogger… At the end of Robertson Street out side white rock baths Hastings

Martin Richter… all the way to Cooden!

Peter Houghton… Thank you for sharing this!

Allan Mitchell… Awesome‼️ Picture.

Anne Murray… What year was this?

Alan Esdaile… Not sure Anne, could be early sixties? Anyone know.

Paul Sleet… Strange isn’t it, that we had electric buses all those years ago, and we changed to diesel. Now we are going backwards.

Tim Harris… Points to those who know the song where the lyrics come from Their Mums and Dads smoke Capstan non filters Wallpaper lives cause they all die of cancer.

Pauline Sims… Great picture

David Wilkinson… Original Omnibus Company model 40102

David Wilkinson… There’s a Hastings trolley bus preserved at East Anglia Transport Museum in Lowestoft.

Carol Acott… Waited there for a bus a few times back in the day

Clare Bennett… I saw 👀 plenty of those in Hastings

Peter Ellingworth… Before October 1957, as that’s when the Maidstone & District logo on the lower side panels replaced the Hastings Tramways one. I think it is between 1950 and 1956 – if I remember correctly, the guy on the left of the two having just alighted from the bus and obviously off to the old White Rock swimming baths, ran a second hand book shop in the Old Town’s George St. – I remember seeing this picture enlarged displayed in the shop window, and talking to him about it some years ago. As an ex-Hastings resident, I would recommend a visit to the East Anglia Transport Museum at Carlton Coville, Lowestoft, where they have superbly restored Hastings TB BDY 809 to full working order. To ride around on this after so many years felt surreal – I thought I had entered the gates of heaven – and this was the TB that was the last to run when the local ‘Great and Good’ were given a run round after lunch in Bexhill, the day after public services ceased at just after 11pm on Sunday 31st.May 1959.
It was one of five or so sold to Maidstone Corporation and continued to run on their system until that closed in 1967. Incidentally, the Hastings system was unique except for either Rotherham or Huddersfield I think in having 18″ instead the normal 24″ spacing between the positive and negative electric overhead running wires, apart from a short extension added in 1947 from The Vic pub at the top end of Battle Road to facilitate a turning circle ( where the ‘Observer’ office now is). Had Hastings Corporation exercised their right to purchase the system in 1955, I believe Hastings Tramways had plans to wire up the then new estate developments ( Bromsgrove, Hollington, and off Rye Road) and the old 76 circular route. Given that the last trolleybus system in the uk closed in 1972 ( Bradford, who also purchased some redundant Hastings TB’s), it would be interesting to consider how long the Hastings system would have lasted from its relatively early demise had the system been purchased.

Peter Ellingworth… Rambling on….. An excellent read on the Hastings trolleybuses is ‘Trams and Trolleybuses in Hastings, St. Leonards -on-Sea and Bexhill ‘ 1905-1959 by Robert J. Harley, and published by Adam Gordon (ISBN 978-1-910654-14-9) which has a wealth of detail and photos. Obtainable through the usual channels ( e-bay etc.), possibly Hastings Library has a copy. It sorted out why I had always wondered as mentioned above Hastings was pretty well unique in the narrower spacing between the positive and negative overhead electric running wires – simply because at its inception in 1928 from tramway conversion it was one of the, if not the, biggest UK systems at the time and utilised a lot of the former tramway equipment, this gauge being standard norm at the time. To convert over while the kit still was within its working life simply would not have made economic sense.
I remember Derek Waters, former depot manager at Silverhill, and the late David Padgam ex M&D employee and the go-to local transport guru, telling me that Hastings was also pretty unique in that they also made a lot of the overhead fittings in house.  It was a much liked and efficient system. By the way, those of you who remember the myriad of poles that carried the overhead wiring from tramway days, latterly used for lamp posts, had in true Victorian -Edwardian style a finial on the top of the posts- most were still in place until a few years ago- in fact I believe one still stands at the top if the High Street, will check out next time I’m down- well, being that sad, I have one of the finials in my conservatory which I bought for a quid scrap value from the Corporation yard when they had a blitz on removing them all some years ago, because of I believe a then EU ruling that all lamp posts had to be able to be collision impact absorbent which the old poles were not.