The open-air swimming pool in Malvern Park, Solihull was purchased by Solihull Council in March 1954, although it had been in use as a privately-owned swimming pool since the early 1940s. It was apparently the first municipal swimming pool in the Solihull district and, according to the Birmingham Daily Post, 8th February 1954, it had been built by Horace Brueton, who had bought the Malvern Hall estate c.1922.
Horace Brueton sold Malvern Hall and some of the parkland to Warwickshire County Council in 1926. He gave the rest of the parkland to Solihull Council in 1944 and it seems that he sold the open-air swimming pool to Alfred and Hilda Brown. They improved the facility, adding changing rooms, lawns and terraces and opened it to the public. In 1949 a filter plant was installed.
The pool buildings included the former coach house and stables that once served Malvern Hall.
A private swimming pool
By 1950, the privately-owned swimming pool was so popular that nearby residents pleaded with Solihull Council to close access to the lido from Park Road. However, the Council said it was unable to provide suitable alternative access to the swimming pool from Malvern Park and all that could be done was to ask the owners to provide additional parking.
The Solihull News, 20th May 1950, reported on “droves” of vehicles arriving in Park Avenue, with residents saying that “they dread the summer evenings when noise from the lido is something more than an nuisance.”
An article in the Warwick County News of 19th May 1951 reports on the opening of the Lido for the season and describes how the water was changed completely every four hours. The temperature of the water depended upon the amount of sunshine, as the owners of open-air pools were not then permitted to have fuel for heating them. The newspaper comments: “Only the more hardy bathers were tempted to enter the water.”
By November 1950, it was reported that Mr A. Brown was keen to dispose of his interest in the swimming pool and had offered it to Solihull Council, which had the same week declined a similar offer from the proprietor of the district’s other open-air swimming pool at Knowle.
The conveyance from Mr Alfred John Brown (born 1900) and Mrs Hilda Annie Brown (1902-1989) to Solihull Urban District Council is dated 25th March 1954. The Solihull News 15th May 1954 quoted the vendor as saying that the purchase price was £11,900.
The 1954/55 season
The pool was opened on 15th May 1954 for its first season under the management of Solihull Council, with the pool making an extension to Malvern Park. It would be open from 8am throughout the summer months until an hour before sunset.
There was no special opening ceremony but the opening was marked by an 8am plunge into the pool by the first swimmer, Councillor Norman Green, who adopted this as his own tradition for the next few years.
A planned swimming gala three days after the opening in 1954 was cancelled owing to rain and an extreme drop in temperature.
It was proposed that during term-time organised school parties should use the pool until 1pm on week-days. Charges recommended included:
- adults 2s
- children 1s
- spectators 9d
- season ticket £2 10s
- children’s season ticket £1 15s
It was reported that 100 bathers used the pool during its opening weekend although the poor summer meant that the Council expected the swimming pool to make a loss after its first municipal season. There was room at the lido for around 2,000 swimmers and spectators.
The season lasted until 18th September 1954. It was reported that a little over 13,000 swimmers and spectators visited the attraction over the season, and that income amounted to £787. The following year, attendance had increased to over 60,000 and income was over £3,500 (Birmingham Daily Post, 19th September 1955).
When the pool opened, it was reported that the only lifeguard was 17-year-old Wendy Payne, who worked weekends as a lifeguard. She had begun swimming at the age of 11, and held the inspector’s life-saving certificate. When not working as a lifeguard, she worked in Birmingham as a fashion house sales trainee.
In July 1954, 22-year-old Miss Daphne Fletcher from Handsworth was appointed as the first full-time female lifeguard and instructor at Malvern Park Swimming Pool. She would be on duty each weekday, finishing at 4.30pm, after which she went to work as a night copy telephonist, working until after midnight.
She apparently performed her first rescue five weeks after being appointed, diving into the pool to help a small boy reported to be in difficulties in the deep end. She applied artificial respiration, and the boy recovered after 10 minutes.
An outbreak of pilfering was feared in September 1954 when a mat went missing from the porch of the park superintendent’s house near the lido. Detectives were called and found the mat in a nearby spinney. Keeping watch, the police officers soon discovered that the culprit was “a playful mongrel” wagging its tail!
Too cold to swim!
Pupils at Solihull High School for Girls reported that the unheated open-air swimming pool, adjacent to their school, was much too cold for a morning swim, even free of charge!
Reminiscing in 2007, Pam Ward, who used the pool in the 1940s said:
We never noticed that the water wasn’t heated or felt the cold, and [we] spent many hours there. I can remember hearing the squeals of excitement as we walked or cycled through Malvern Park to get there… I remember the soggy grassed area in front of the café [that sold] (squash/ice cream/crisps mainly…)
Ref.: NC/Solihull Historical/Reminiscences/2007/11
In May 1955, Solihull Council’s Education Committee heard that swimming tuition for beginners “could not reasonably be given” in an open-air unheated pool, the shelving of which made instruction for beginners “difficult.” Councillor Edgar Hiley commented that “our forefathers used to swim in the rivers” and that it was “rather tragic” that children needed to be pampered so much.
It’s clear from the newspaper reports how dependent the lido was on good weather. After a bumper season in 1955, receipts were down by £2,000 the following year – from £3,713 to £1,510 – with the bad summer weather being blamed for the drop. Income increased to £2,120 in 1957 and to £2,387 in 1958. A record-breaking £4,816 was taken in 1959 but this fell to £3,439 the following year because of unseasonal weather.
Water leaks
Throughout its first Council-owned season, the open-air pool was leaking water into the ground. The pool held 175,000 gallons of water but, during the 18-week summer season, 250,000 gallons leaked out .
Once the lido closed for the winter season the pool was drained and, on 2nd November 1954, experts examined the bottom of the pool to try to find out what was causing the leak.
Happy memories
Many local people have fond memories of Solihull Lido. Dora Mason remembers the wooden corrugated changing cubicles being open to the elements, and that it was so popular that people were sometimes turned away if numbers were already at capacity.
I came to live in Marston Green in 1952 and a few years later visited Solihull Lido (adjacent to Brueton Park) when my children were quite young. There was a good-sized adult pool plus a toddlers’ pool and a shop where you could purchase food and drink. Deckchairs were also supplied and we spent many happy days there, taking family and friends, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, swimmers and non-swimmers alike. It was so popular, we often had to queue up to get in but it was well worth it.
(ref.: NC/Solihull Historical/Reminiscences/2006/20)
N. J. Woodhead remembers swimming in cold, blue water in the 1960s and diving from the fixed board, having cycled there from Sheldon.
During the first weekend of June 1963, Solihull Lido was frequented by more than 3,500 bathers during three days. However, Solihull’s first indoor municipal swimming baths was opened at Tudor Grange on 19th June 1965 and, as it had a heated pool, it could offer a more reliable bathing experience, which contributed to the decline of the lido.
Admission prices at the lido increased by 50 per cent in 1969, although there were no further price rises until 1974 when adult admission charges increased from 17p to 20p, and children’s tickets increased from 5.5p to 7p.
Save the Lido!
Newspaper reports and Council minutes indicate that the problem with leaks, noted in 1954, was never completely resolved. In 1975, the pool remained closed for the whole of the season, as the estimated £8,000 loss was deemed too great for the Council to bear. Although the Policy Committee did overturn this decision after over 3,000 local residents signed a petition calling for a reprieve, there was then no money available to make the necessary repairs to actually allow it to open.
In January 1976, an operational loss of £7,000 was expected, but it was decided to give the lido a £3,000 facelift and to open for nine weeks from 11th July 1976.
In 1979, attendances dropped to an all-time low, and Solihull Council made a decision that the pool would close. However, after protests from action group “Save the Lido,” the Council agreed to give the pool another chance, provided that the group could raise the estimated £9,000 needed for the lido to open for the season.
As a result of increasing financial losses and structural problems requiring expensive repairs, the pool was closed in 1982. The Birmingham Mail, 11th September 1982, reported that the porous bottom of the lido meant that water was seeping into the gardens of a neighbouring house. The major repair needed was estimated to cost £30,000.
There was a local campaign to re-open the lido during the heatwave of 1984 but it came to nothing as the estimated repair costs had risen to £50,000.
Redevelopment plans
When the Park Avenue lido closed in 1982, councillors gave an assurance the site would not be used for housing.
After first being considered for sale and use as a nursing or convalescent home, the lease of site was put out to tender in 1987, with applications including redevelopment for luxury housing. However, the Council accepted the lowest bid – from Saint Martin’s School – which planned to build an indoor pool and a drama studio on the site. The school was due to take over the adjacent Malvern Hall in 1989 and the understanding was that the pool would be reopened to the public during school holidays and other off-peak times.
The Birmingham Mail, 20th May 1988, noted that the Saint Martin’s Board of Governors had changed their minds and had written to the Council to say that they wished instead to build a swimming pool for private school use only at the back of the Malvern Hall gym, and redevelop the historic lido site for classrooms.
A new sixth-form block was opened on 13th July 1990 in the old stables adjoining the lido.
There was an unsuccessful application for National Lottery funding to re-open the lido in 1998. The Evening Mail, 10th June 1999, reported that hopes that the lido could be reopened were finally killed off by the announcement that work had started on an indoor pool at Saint Martin’s School. It said that the original intention of building a replacement swimming baths on the outdoor site proved unworkable because of the high cost of renovating the lido site.
The site is now fenced off for safety reasons, and has been reclaimed by nature with self-seeded trees hiding the remains of the pool and colourful changing cubicles within woodland.
In 2020, Solihull Council rejected an application to build houses on the site of the lido.
If you have any memories of Solihull Lido, please let us know.
© Solihull Council, 2024.
You are welcome to link to this article, but if you wish to reproduce more than a short extract, please email: heritage@solihull.gov.uk
Further reading
Lost Lidos website – Malvern Park Lido
Solihull Life 
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