Thursday 12 July 2007

Brighton-le-Sands

Above: Brighton Baths in the 1930s. These "new" baths were opened in 1928 and were extremely popular. I loved going there in the early 1970s.

In browsing the net, I came across these photos of the old Brighton-le-Sands swimming enclosure on Botany Bay. (National Library Collection: Picture Australia).

That got me remembering that I used to go down there in the late 1960s / early 1970s. Used to love sliding down the suspended slippery dips into the water!

There is still an enclosure there, but no longer an elevated boardwalk to jump and slide into the water from. It looks like this:





Here's a terrific pic I found of a surf carnival at the baths (date?)

5 comments:

Jo's-D-Eyes said...

Hi Sally,
Wow indeed! You made really something a great picture blog from swimming pools! No wonder that you liked my photo's of the swimmingpool in the rocks (In Spain), we love swimmingpools en are always searching for places or houses to rent with one....

You're veryy welcom to visit me again. you have so many blogs wow!

Very impressed JoAnn

Unknown said...

A fond memory of mine of these pools was watching huge jelly-blubbers get pushed against the outside of the enclosure by the tides. Thank you for the photos

unkleE said...

I attended Sydney Technical High School at Bexley from 1957-1961, and during that time, one option for summer sport was swimming at Brighton baths. I remember it being crowded with high school boys, just like in your first photo. The enormous change rooms were rather dank and dark in those days.

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Anonymous said...

I can remember swimming in the old baths, when swimming was segregated pre- 1939, before the new baths were built. I too remember the jelly blubbers trapped in the baths and was stung many times. I was born opposite in an a grey granite cottage, (must have been a private hospital) in 1929 and spent my early years swimming at Brighton. joan