Swimming pools & swimmers

First images of Livingstone Road baths site - being put to good use

I remember the paddling pool opposite Stoke Park well, certainly in the 1960s and 70s. My grandparents lived at South Avenue, and I used to stay with them every summer. It's long gone sadly. I remember the old stocks there too.

Our Stoke Green thread may interest you These photos also, showing the stocks and the paddling pool

Hmm, the more I see of the frame for the new pool going up in New Union Street, the less I'm liking it, and more convinced it's in the wrong place. They've not considered the impact to Christchurch at all IMO.

With the new water park ready to be opened what ever happened to the proposal to build a 50 meter pool at Alan Higgs Centre. Is this proposal still standing or been forgotten.

I suppose as an Historic Forum we can criticise the council for pulling down old buildings but there were two sides of the penny. By the time Coventry Council decided to pull down Butcher Row (1936) they had already built and opened the Livingstone Road swimming pool, this was a real godsend for kids in Coventry, it enabled a lot of us kids to leave the dirty canal water for a cleaner place to swim, and with the Rivoli cinema just down the road it coincided with films of the world's fastest swimmer in the world Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) that we kids tried to copy throwing the old side stroke out the window. In the 1950's the 'Livi' became the training pool for Coventry's Olympic swimmer Graham Sykes. This was a great achievement for Coventry and the 'Livi' and the Council in the first place.

It is due to open next year.

Thank you Tony

Maybe the problem is that the spire is an anachronism, and nothing in that area really 'fits in' with it, including the offices opposite and the Bullyard? It's futile trying to make everything new in Coventry fit in with the tiny fragments of pre-war city. If anything, it's the pre-war stuff that's out of place. I actually think the new building gives the spire more space than the office building and will make it stand out more. More visitors will probably see it as well.

#274 I hope so Flapdoodle!

New swimming pool at Alan Higgs Centre - Telegraph article

Learned to swim there, went by bus from Freddie Birds in the late 50s with the whole class.

I wasn't in the pool all that often as I had severe eczema on my hands as a teenager, but I still went on the bus with the others from Tech to Livingstone Road, and had to sit it out. Never managed to swim!

You'll enjoy these then, Neil, from last week

I don't wish to controversial, in fact I'm trying to be positive..... but I like it! And it could actually encourage views of the Christ Church spire from people who otherwise wouldn't have noticed it.