UTC
UTC +1
civil twilight
04:49
sunrise
05:25
UTC
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Live stream: |
The Old Lido, St. Leonards. Mary Hooper; Lucia Scazzocchio; James Wilkie
Latitude: +50.85063866022684°
Founders of Sono Electro sound art festival St. Leonards, Lucia Scazzocchio Social Broadcaster; and James Wilkie Sonic Artist, and myself a multi-media artist, will be streaming from the site of one of the most famous outdoor olympic sized swimmming pools in the UK, St. Leonards Bathing Pool, which opened in 1933 and closed in 1989. It is a pebbles throw from the beach and immently threathened with an oversized housing development, to which there is much opposition. Who is listening? This could be the first and last Reviell broadcast from this site. The sound will be that of a coastal dawn.
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Listening notes - lie back and close your eyes and swim with the tide. Bathing Pool (extract from 1066 online) Purpose built open air pools and lido's were very fashionable in the 1930's with over 300 operating nationwide at one point. Plans were revealed for the St Leonards Bathing Pool in 1931. The Daily Express ran the headline "£60,000 lido for Hastings" announcing the news. Commissioned by Hastings Council and built by Sydney Little (known as the Concrete King) who claimed it would be the biggest and best pool in Europe. Indeed it did rival the giants of Blackpool and Southport when it opened in May 1933. The olympic sized pool had staggered seating for 2,500 spectators to the sides, plus a gymnasium and car park beneath. The attraction of the pool was enhanced due to the fact that you could alternate swimming in the pool with swimming in the sea on the adjacent beach. Organised games became very popular on the terrace between the pool and the sea. Although admitting 33,000 in June of its first year, unfortunately the council closed the pool in 1959, having only made a profit in for the first year. The council offered the pool to private companies in 1946 but nobody took them up on the offer until 1960. Under new owner Dennis Carrington, the pool complex became known as Hastings Holiday Centre and included chalet hire for 300 guests. By the 1980's the appeal of outdoor pools in the UK was on the decline and the pool finally closed for good in 1986.
Sono Electro (https://sono-electro.co.uk/about/) a sound festival in St. Leonards and Hastings with a hub at the old Bathing pool site at Electro Studios Project Space. |