King George Park - Remembering Bushey's open air pool

Maybe even a heatwave to equal today’s frequent high temperatures. Arguably, not the most timely moment for Hertsmere Council to close, forever, the open-air swimming pool at King George Recreation Ground in Bushey.

Four years later the pool area was entirely demolished and resurfaced with grass - as if it never existed. Leaving behind only memories for so many from the Bushey community of endless childhood summers, perhaps “sneaking up to the sundeck and diving-board, strictly only for 18 year olds”. Or school P.E trips during term time when the weather could be very different.

Many won’t easily forget emerging into a chilly grey, autumn morning from the sturdy, white-painted timber poolside changing rooms. Then nervously on tip-toes across the hard concrete paving to the very edge of the 60 by 20-foot pool before deciding to take the plunge - into the unheated, and deathly cold, freezing waters.

Bushey swimming Pool in the 1930s (Image: Kelvin Graham)

Pool opened a decade after the recreation ground

The pool, which opened in July 1925, came more than a decade after The King George Recreation Ground was officially opened on 5th May 2012.

Bushey Urban District Council had previously purchased Biggs Mead Field - 13 acres of land south-east of Coldharbour Lane, earmarked for the new recreation space. In 2011, council contractors began marking out footpaths, football and cricket pitches.

They then installed play equipment, a refreshment hut, bandstand, changing rooms and a caretaker’s lodge at the entrance to the site in King George Avenue. A bowling green would also be added the following year.

Summer painting of the pool (Image: Miguel Mckinley)

It wasn’t until the 1950s that modern purification was installed.

The openair swimming pool was originally simply filled with chlorinated water. Many swear they “still have the taste in their mouths today”, so acrid was the solution on the days the pool was refilled with the stringent chemical.

It wasn’t until the 1950s that the salt-filled water was replaced by a modern purification and filtration system installed in the pool. A great improvement. “From then on, no more stinging eyes, burning nose and throat”, as one local resident recalls.

As a result of the more pleasant waters the queues started to lengthen. How many more hundreds of local people, now in their more senior years, remember the hot hazy summers of the 1950s and the 60s, as a glorious time for cooling off in the pool after school, weekends or during the holiday breaks.

The pool became so popular that the council even imposed time limits on swimming sessions. They also decided to hold each year in August a very popular open-entry swimming gala for all the community to participate in fun races.

Financial cutbacks affected running and maintenance

However, some 25 years after it was first installed the heating and filtration system was hardly heating nor filtrating. Some regular user claimed there was “no circulation of water at all”. Despite the historic long heatwave of summer 1976, much of the decade’s summer weather was barely average or simply just cold.

Meanwhile, there were still the ever-rising costs of running and maintaining the pool facility, despite dwindling attendance. The tide had seemed to turn. As the 1979s ebbed away into 1980s, there was a feeling that the pool had seen better days. Financial cutbacks increasingly affected the ability of the council to properly maintain the entire recreation facility, including the pool.

So by the early 1990s, the council took the decision to shut down the aging pool for good.

Eventually, money was found to rejuvenate the grounds, which saw the reopening of the park in 1998 with widened footpaths, two new tennis courts, a new café and a play area with a rebuilt paddling pool for young children and toddlers.

But no new swimming pool!

There probably isn’t a single Bushey resident whose eyes don’t open wide and a smile rushes across their face when the Open-Air Swimming Pool is mentioned. They all remember the freezing water but also the wonderful times causing mischief and mayhem.

And they all agree what a “terrible thing” it was for the council to close the pool and replace with only a new paddling pool.