No I haven’t finally lost reality these steps were used by real ‘outdoor bathers’ more than 100 years ago; but alas not built by the Romans. They are concrete, and the swimming pool base set with concrete that has lasted, but much of the other semi-circular parts of the side walling has been completely washed away or demolished.
I posted for information on the ‘Paddling Pool’ asking for any information on our Barry and District Museumeers Facebook page which has drawn a complete blank. However, our outdoor seawater-filled swimming pool has some echoes of a story here. Don’t forget bathing here in the 1940s, your feet would have been ‘nibbled ’ by crabs. With a shop nearby at Friars Point overlooking the swimming pool, and access was free; it beats the Knap Lido any day.
Old black and white photos of our sea water-filled swimming pool; others call it by a less grander name: ‘tidal pool’ show it was well used in the 1920s. An image from 1958 shows that seven concrete steps on the Eastern side existed at the pool, now eroded away. There was a plan as covered in the Barry and District News on February 12, 2010, to resurrect the ‘natural bathing pool’. It was reported that: “Use of the pool is believed to have ceased around 1970, and it subsequently fell into disrepair and was demolished due to drainage problems and poor quality seawater at the time.”
But sadly the rebuilding of the paddling pool was abandoned due to cost, but not due to lack of public support.
When was the ‘paddling pool’ constructed? Thanks to the Ordnance Survey, as recorded by 1915, the Bathing Pool by name and as a structure with three linear sides (north, south and access stairs as still exist on the Western Friars Point side) and the curved Whitmore Bay side; now demolished. However, this is not what the photographs seem to show, more curved Northern and Southern sides as in a 1948 image; or a trick of the photographic angle as illustrated with linear sides from a 1916 hand coloured image.
Stories on the net talk about the ‘swimming pool’ being a safe place to learn how to swim. And, in the summer months, the water was warmer than the deep blue sea beyond.
This is a republished version of an article that first appeared on the Barry and District News in November 2025.
