Not a dire eighties pop comeback but The Urban Swimmer at Golden Lane Sport and Fitness.
Last week saw the re-opening of the pool at Golden Lane Leisure Centre, now re-branded as Golden Lane Sport and Fitness. The centre has been closed for a year being refurbished and although the bulk of the gym opened in February, the pool only re-opened on Monday. Thus quick as a flash The Urban Swimmer got himself down there before the lanes got clogged.
If you are unfamiliar with the place, it's a 1960's building packed away behind the main Barbican complex and was designed by the same Architects: Chamberlain, Powell, and Bon. They actually designed the Golden Lanes Estate before the Barbican. Minimalist, brutal, 60s architecture being the key concept here, the pool sits in a large glass box that can be viewed by passersby on two levels. It's a bit like swimming in one of those large plexiglass squash courts, though in some ways a refreshing change from the standard indoor swimming pool.
Barely free of the smell of fresh paint, the place looks spanking new. The pool itself is a rather odd size, 20m long and about 8m wide. It feels like a very grown-up affair going quite deep three-quarters of the way across. At the time of The Urban Swimmer's visit the pool had rather sensibly been split into just three lanes. It wasn't very busy (the lifeguard looked very bored) and at present Golden Lane is open pleasantly late to evening swimmers.
The Golden Lane web site/press release likes to make much of the fact that "the only public leisure centre in the City’s Square Mile, re-opens its doors today". Ooops! There they go again calling it a Leisure Centre. The funny thing is, the place is trying really, really hard to look like a private gym. It may have been a first week thing but when TUS visited the people on reception were wearing suits. They were just as inattentive as average leisure centre staff but bless them they were trying. Maybe they feel that this being the financial district this is the thing to do. The gym now becoming the de-rigueur mark of corporate culture, TUS can't help but feel that the City is already full of slick looking, and exceedingly underused gyms - does it really need more clones? Has the blandness of the 1970s, Brittas Empire, track-suited Leisure Centre simply been replaced by the blandness of the modern, wood floored, metallic edged, running machine, faux-corporate gym?
A one off swim costs about a fiver, but if you're in the City and can't wait for the Iron Monger Row Baths to re-open it's a nice enough swim in an interesting setting.
The Golden Lane web site/press release likes to make much of the fact that "the only public leisure centre in the City’s Square Mile, re-opens its doors today". Ooops! There they go again calling it a Leisure Centre. The funny thing is, the place is trying really, really hard to look like a private gym. It may have been a first week thing but when TUS visited the people on reception were wearing suits. They were just as inattentive as average leisure centre staff but bless them they were trying. Maybe they feel that this being the financial district this is the thing to do. The gym now becoming the de-rigueur mark of corporate culture, TUS can't help but feel that the City is already full of slick looking, and exceedingly underused gyms - does it really need more clones? Has the blandness of the 1970s, Brittas Empire, track-suited Leisure Centre simply been replaced by the blandness of the modern, wood floored, metallic edged, running machine, faux-corporate gym?
A one off swim costs about a fiver, but if you're in the City and can't wait for the Iron Monger Row Baths to re-open it's a nice enough swim in an interesting setting.
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