The Meridian Pool
The long pool is the reason the house was built: thirty-eight metres of dressed stone under the original arched ceiling, cooled from 41 °C at the source to a swimming 33.
Water temperature: 33 °C, spring-fed and skimmed at dawn. See when it runs quietest.
What the lane map means
Brass tiles mark six lanes, and the middle two stay empty until 9 am so dawn swimmers never cross. The deep end drops to 2.4 metres; the shallow end is walked-height for the standing-and-talking crowd, who are tolerated with affection.
- Lengths are counted by the brass tally frame at the west steps; ask the deck steward for a counter.
- One hundred lengths in a single session earns the house mug, named on the centenary board.
- Floats and fins live in the drying room; ask, do not rummage.
- The pool closes for scrubbing every third Thursday, 9 am to noon.
A short pool history
Ottilie Marsh cut the pool hall into the river terrace in 1926, lining it with stone quarried from the same hillside the spring rises under. The arched ceiling survived the 1939 requisition because the Navy used the hall as a ward and liked it too much to alter it. The brass lane markers are original; the water is the same spring it always was, just cooled on purpose since 1931.
Quietest hours: dawn session, weekdays before 8 am. Liveliest: Saturday twilight, when the school of regulars compares cold tolerances.
Swim it at dawn
The dawn session runs 6 to 9 am. Lane ropes in, chatter out, steam fresh off the spring.
The Pools
Cascade, Meridian, Mosaic, Plunge, Resting. In that order.
41 °CThe Water
One spring, honestly described, never sweetened.
Since 1926History
Ottilie Marsh, the ward years, the slow clock.
8 ritualsTreatments
Hands, heat, salt and birch, priced plainly.
ArchiveThe Journal
Longer notes from the stairwell cabinet.
VisitPlan a Visit
Trains, towpaths, punts and what to bring.