Hampstead Lido (Parliament Hill)

When people think of swimming and Hampstead Heath they usually think of the famous Hampstead Ponds; those rather muddy patches of popular summer water perhaps more renowned for it's poseurs and nude sun bathers than swimmers. Much forgotten, and largely hidden behind walls just south of the Parliament Hill athletics track, lies the true glory of Heath swimming: a huge, and rather splendidly maintained open air swimming pool.
Can't place it? Here is what it looks like from above:
Google Map Aerial Photo

Built in 1938 with a distinct Art Deco look to the place. Rather than being run by the local council, the Heath's sporting facilities fall under the remit of the wealthy and esteemed Corporation of London (who apparently own Hampstead Heath). So next time you are cursing the greed of Bankers you can at least console yourself that their business rates are least paying for the upkeep of wonderful places like the Lido - that one suspects could not sustain themselves on the low revenues of passing swimmers.

The pool is a whopping 61m x 27m - effectively bigger than an Olympic size pool. It is an unheated pool with a slightly strange stainless steel lining (to retain heat perhaps?). You can swim here everyday during the Summer months of May to September. In the winter the pool remains open to hardy morning swimmers prepared to brave the chill. On Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays there are cheap (£2) evening swims which seem popular with a wetsuited triathlon crowd doing endless training lengths of freestyle crawl. Go on a warm weekend and you will find  is a mix of kids, families and sunbathers who spread themselves on the sun-warmed clay and benches surrounding the waters and generally laze about. Morning swims are so popular the swimmers are request to swim widths rather than length - the Urban Swimmer is not really a "morning person" so he has yet to experience this.

There is a splendid little day time cafe serving cups of tea and sandwiches; and a spectacularly ugly fountain the bubbles away for no good reason. The showers are always hot and the changing rooms at time of writing had just been given a new lick of paint.

It hard to swim at the Lido and not come away with a warm glow. This is not just because of the jolt to your circulation that a cold water swim will give you, but the general ambiance of good will that the place exudes. The staff are chirpy and the regulars cheerful. I have swum here on warm sun filled days surrounded my laughing teens and rainy overcast rainy evenings where I and a duck have been practically the only swimmers - and every time the place lifts my spirits. This is the start of my swims and if you only ever swim in one London pool it should be this one. Much like London Zoo, if you are a Londoner and haven't been here, you really should.

A turn of the Fates

I have realised that yesterday was Midsummer (The Longest Day) for 2011. How opportune that this should be the day that I finally get around to starting that blog I was thinking about. The rite of the ancient summer solstice thus coincides with my symbolic return to the waves.

Today I also encountered an interesting turn of luck. A week ago I left a rather good quality wetsuit on the London Underground in a moment of absent mindedness. Today I called the TFL lost property office and it appears a kind soul handed in at a ticket office. I am reunited with me swimming kit. The Fates are with me...or perhaps Volturnus.

PS. I was reminded with yesterday's mention of the John Cheever short story that I had actually only seen the Burt Lancaster movie. I came across this excellent reading of the original story on The New Yorker fiction podcast:

The New Yorker: Anne Enright reads Cheever's The Swimmer

Not with a splash but a drizzle...

All things must have a beginning, here is mine.

A year or so ago I rediscovered swimming...

I say rediscovered because I have always swum. My childhood was full of trips to the local pool and I was never one of those kids that was afraid of water, but that's about as far as it got me. I was a solid breast-stroker and a confident enough swimmer. I think we swam at school a little and somewhere in my mum's house is a grade 4 swimming certificate which I'm still quite proud of having - because hey, you don't get certificates all the time right? So that was me, Mr periodic swimmer: at the beach, in holiday pools and on occasions when I lived reasonably close to public pools.

A few years ago I joined a local gym, and proceeded to do what most people who join gyms do...not go to it much. However the gym had a hidden saving grace. Stuck right at the back was a small swimming pool. A rather tiny one. The type most gyms have so that they can put a nice picture of it in the brochure but in reality are a bit like being in large bath tub without the taps at one end. The beauty of this one was (is) that almost no one uses it. Thus in the peace and quiet of an empty north London swimming pool I had a chance to practise my strokes and return, as it were, to the water.

Last year, I swam in a short Aquathon (a swim and run event). This year I bought a wetsuit and started cold water swimming in early summer in the Hampstead Lido. Swimming is becoming something I do more than once a week.

So, here is the proposition, the idea of the blog. Each week (or so) I swim in a different London waterhole, and I write about it. Simple. A wild swimmer in the urban environment. A Neddy Merrill for London...though hopefully without the despair and disintegration at the end...actually maybe we should forgot John Cheever.