Burnham Beeches

[slimjim]

Does anyone remember a lido in Burnham Beeches. If so, please tell me more about it. I'm sure I went there as a kid but my memory is playing tricks with me.

[flaming]

I hope this is pinned down, slimjim.  I lived in the area for a while in the 50s.  Although I went to Burnham Beeches  a few times, and came across the green-painted fence/gates one time, it was closed, presumably because it was out of season.  People talked about having gone there.  Of course there was a lot of closures of public swimming pools at that time because of polio outbreaks. I'm so senior now that the memory blurs!  Your question brought back the scene.I was about 12, and it was possible in those days for my friend and me to wander about unaccompanied, so long as we didn't go off with people. 

[charliemaine]

Hi
This is an old thread but been looking for answers myself..yes there was a pool there in.I remember it from the late 70's early 80's-was also a funfair next door as well along with Henrys nightclub as well.A lovely outdoor pool.i always enjoyed it there more than bayliss park lido.

[TheAlmightyZog]

Hi. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but unfortunately, it isn't there anymore.

If anybody is still interested, point your browsers at www.bing.com/maps (better for this than Google thanks to it's angled overhead views) and find Farnham Common. Follow Beeches Road away from the village. It will become Lord Mayors Drive and then end at Hawthorn Lane. Just over the road, you'll see a small housing development called Nightingale Park. This is built on the former fairground site, the boundary line of which is still very visible.

I moved to Farnham Common back in 79 at the tender age of 11 and remember passing the fairground well (largely as it was a mass of tall white posts/structures against all the green) but thought it was, if not disused, then pretty much on it's last legs by that point. (It was certainly never mentioned by any of the other kids I knew as being somewhere to go, hence my assumption).

The closest I ever got to it was actually during the Beeches half marathon of 85: the gate was open and the deserted interior looked ripe for investigation - but a group of intimidating looking fairground types (who were walking back in) said it was closed so that was that. The abandoned car by the roadside, half of which had ben reclaimed by vegetation certainly gave that impression. I left the area in early 88 and Nightingale Park was definitely occupied by then so I'm assuming that demolition started shortly after.

[qvtwo]

I can give a definitive answer about the Burnham Beeches lido as I learned to swim there in about 1947! My parents simply let air gradually out of my water wings until I was swimming unaided - although I didn't realise this at the time. We were living in Holtspur at the end of the war, and Burnham Beeches was an easy cycle ride on lanes almost completely devoid of traffic. (petrol rationing).The pool was unheated, octagonal in shape, (I think) and we used to call it threepenny-bit shaped. It had a big fountain as, presumably, part of the water purification circuit, and rather grotty timber changing cabins round the circumference. You put you clothes in a sort of old suitcase and handed them to an attendant in exchange for a token. I can't remember how much it was to get in, probably 3d or 6d old money! Yes, there was a rather 'disreputable' funfair next door to the pool. (My parents not in favour, but my friend and I would manage to get to the slot machines sometimes after a swim). The big interest for us boys was the variety of ancient machinery driving the rides and powering the generators. Old lorries, coaches and buses, all of them pre-war, and many of them already old when the war started. Happy days!