Cannon Hill Park Open-Air Swimming Pool

Description:There were open-air swimming pools at Cannon Hill Park, and at Victoria Park, Small Heath. The pool at Cannon Hill Park was opened at the same time as the park, in September 1873, while the pool at Victoria Park, Small Heath, was opened in July 1883. Although they were located within parks, the swimming baths were initially the responsibility of the Baths Committee of the City Council. The baths at both parks only seem to have been open during the summer season, starting on 1 May, and charges for the use of the Cannon Hill bath were 1d, with an additional charge for the hire of a towel when the park opened in 1873, but by 1899 had risen to 2d up to 10am, and 1d until closing by 1899. Free bathing was now offered on Wednesday afternoons and all day on Saturdays.^{<small>1</small>}

Evidence in the City Council Parks Committee minutes suggests that many bathers had to hire towels and swimming costumes, and that in the early years of the baths’ existence, attitudes towards wearing costumes were more relaxed, possibly because the majority of users could not afford to buy them. At a special meeting of the committee on 24 December 1873 the conditions of a minute were altered by stipulating that bathers under the age of sixteen shall not be required to use bathing drawers.^{<small>2</small>} Bathing sessions seem to have been segregated; the pool at Victoria Park was reserved for use by women only on Friday afternoons,^{<small>3</small>} and even in the 1920s, mixed bathing sessions were novel.^{<small>4</small>}

There are suggestions that conditions in the open-air baths might not have been very pleasant for bathers. In 1879 it was decided to regularly clean and drain the bathing pool because the bottom had become covered with a deposit of mud, and in 1887 there were ongoing problems with sewage from houses at Russell Road overflowing into the bathing pool.^{<small>5</small>}

The baths were closed for a time around the First World War period, but re-opened for the summer season of 1921, with improved facilities including a pavilion containing dressing rooms. Certain days were to be reserved for women and girls.^{<small>6</small>} The baths were popular during the inter-war period, as shown by this photograph, and there were suggestions in the early 1930s that a section of Cannon Hill Park be set aside for open-air swimming and sun bathing, to form a ‘Birmingham Lido’. However, this was not universally welcomed, with a letter to the Birmingham Gazette complaining about ‘irresponsible youngsters’ and wondering why anyone would want to sunbathe ‘no decent people would want to lie about like a lot of animals’.^{<small>7</small>} The scheme was abandoned, and by the late 1930s, the baths were facing competition from purpose-built lidos elsewhere in the city, and the Parks Committee was concerned about the expense of maintaining them.^{<small>8</small>} A suggestion made at a meeting in late 1938 that the baths might be converted to paddling pools for children was rejected because of the cost, but also because there were doubts about the water quality which was ‘below the approved standard of purity’.^{<small>9</small>} The baths at both parks were closed in early 1939. In the early 1960s the Midlands Arts Centre was built on the site of the Cannon Hill Park open-air pool.^{<small>10</small>}


<font color="#666633"><small>¹ Birmingham City Council Baths and Parks Committee Minutes, 18 December 1899 [BA&H: BCC AL/1/1/11]
² BCC Baths and Parks Committee Minutes, 24 December 1873 [BA&H: BCC AL/1/1/6]
³ BCC Baths and Parks Committee Minutes, 17 September 1883 [BA&H: BCC AL/1/1/7]
⁴ Birmingham Despatch photograph of mixed bathing session, Cannon Hill Park, 24 May 1929
⁵ BCC Baths and Parks Committee Minutes, 29 September 1879, and 16 May 1887 [BA&H: BCC AL/1/1/6]
⁶ Birmingham Weekly Post (2 October 1920)
⁷ Birmingham Gazette (12 September 1930); Birmingham Gazette (3 September 1930)
⁸ Several Lido complexes were constructed in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, usually consisting of purpose-built public open-air swimming pools, with a surrounding area for sunbathing
⁹ BCC Parks Committee Minutes, 5 December 1938 [BA&H: BCC1/BO/1/1/20]
¹⁰ Steve Beauchampe & Simon Inglis, Played in Birmingham: Charting the Heritage of a City at Play (English Heritage, 2006), p.29</small></font>