BRITAIN CATERS FOR ITS BATHERS

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 591, 24 July 1933, Page 7

BRITAIN CATERS FOR ITS BATHERS

rFHANKS to publlc and private enterprise and the modern demand for such facilities, Great Britain, and Greater London in particular, now offer many attractions for swimming and suhbathing devotee3. Within a short journey from the West End of London there are the Highgate Ponds, open to men and women bathers the year round, and the scene of many international swimming and high diving diaplays. From May to September the new Hyde Park swimming and sunbathing beach Is open from sunrise to sunset. This is an ideal spot for all kinds of water activities. There is shallow water for the learner or novice, deep water for the expert, and splendid accommodation for those who want to enjoy sunbathing. y Visitors who require exercise and an invigorating tonic after a day's sightseeing will find a number of excellent covered baths within one mile or so of Central London. They have a wide choice. There are the Chelsea Baths in King's Road; Queen's Road Baths in Paddington; Holborn Baths midway between the British Museum and Covent Garden; Marshall Street Baths, a marble bathing palace in the heart of goho; Great Smith Street Baths, two minutes' walk from Westminster Abbey; St. George's Baths in Buckingham Palace Road; St. Bride's Bath is but one minute'B stroll from St. Paul's, and Marylebone Baths are almost opMadame Tussaud'a,

On London's outer circle there is a rapidly increasing ring of newly constructed open-air baths, varying in length from 30 to 110 yards, where the sunbather can enjoy himself on grass lawns or in deck cliairs. They are now to be found on all the great arterial roads. To the east of London, Barklng possesses an ideal open-air pool with first-class diving boards, in a great public park quite close to a new main road much used by motorists. Two mlles away in the Valentines Park, Ilford. there is a 50-yards bath with ample accommodation for big crowds. Valentines Park lies parallel to the Southend arterial road. Enfield, on the Cambridge arterial road, makes the proud boast that its new open-air bath is the best of its kind in the south of Englaiid, Then, still following the outer circle from Enfield, there is another fine bathing pool at Hornsey. Visitors driving from London north through Barnet will find everything for swimming or sunbathing at the Finchley Baths, close to Tally-Ho Corner. Hendon, too, has a useful pool. In the West there is Ghiswick and London's largest openair bath in the Bloemfontein Road, Hammersmith, under the cliarge of the doyen of English swimming champions, "Rob" Derbyshire. Across the river Wimbledon and Tooting Beccater for the Louth London area. In Kent, on the Tunbridge Wells main road, there is a bath at Dunton Green, another at Bromley, and motorists I

0 driving through to Canterbury wili fiud a modern open-air pool in Chatham. During the past three years road houses with open-air swimming pcois attaelied have been erected on many of tbe arterial roads ai'ound London. These road-housss attract big crowds of motorists during the summer months, who combine the threefold pleasui-es of a drive in the open-aii with an invigorating dip in the bath before taking a meal and enjoying a dance. At present there are road houses with pools at Watford, Eslier and Welwyn, and plans are afoot to open out new veniures in this diroc tion at Slough, Radlett, Mill H.'ll and Watford. Farther afield there are attractiv natural bathing pools, under sylvan surroundings, at Ashstead and Leatherhead south of the Thames; at Oxford for motorists journeying West; at Cambridge for travellers to the northeast; and at Bedford for those journeying due north. From Whitley Bay, in Northumberland, to Morecambe, in Nortb Lancashire, along the sea coast of England and Wales, there are innuinerable open-air salt water bathing pools catering for all phases of water sports and sunbathing. With but few exceptions these seaside pools have ^been erected by the local authoritios within the last 1® years, and naturally the facilities generally are up-to-date.