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This Jane Austen blog brings Jane Austen, her novels, and the Regency Period alive through food, dress, social customs, and other 19th C. historical details related to this topic.

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« 18th & 19th Century Pleasure and Tea Gardens in London
In Jane Austen’s Own Words: Evening Conversation »

The Peerless Pool: London’s First Outdoor Public Swimming Pool

March 4, 2009 by Vic

One of the reasons I enjoyed Georgette Heyer’s Frederica so much was because she included vivid descriptions of London as Lord Alverstoke squired Frederica’s two young brothers to places of boyish interest. One of their destinations was the Peerless Pool, a once popular pleasure spot that has faded into distant memory since its closing in 1850.

peerless-pool-21

Perilous Pond, an ancient London spring whose overflowing waters formed a pond near Old Street, was a noted place for duck hunting in the 17th century. The pond acquired a dark name because of the many youths that had drowned in it.  In 1743, a local jeweller named William Kemp converted this pond into London’s first outdoor public swimming pool, renaming it the Peerless Pool. Situated behind St. Luke’s hospital, the newly embanked pool was 170 x 108 ft in dimension and from 3-5 feet deep. Bathers would dress in a vestibule made of marble, and descend into the waters by marble steps to a fine gravel bottom. A screen of trees and an arcade that surrounded the pool provided both privacy and shade from the sun. Adjacent to the pool, Kemp constructed a grand artificial canal stocked with carp, tench, and other fish for cockney sportsmen. Similar to the pleasure gardens described in the previous post, visitors could expect other attractions in the form of a small library with light literature, bowling green, and “every innocent and rational amusement”,*  including ice skating in winter.

peerless3

At the annual subscription rate of £1 10s or one  shilling per visit, the costs were prohibitive for all but the upper and rising middle classes.

Text not available
The London Pleasure Gardens of the Eighteenth Century By Warwick Wroth, … assisted by Arthur Edgar Wroth With sixty-two illustrations By Warwick William Wroth, Arthur Edgar Wroth

During the time that Jane Austen visited her brother Henry in London and in which Georgette Heyer set Frederica, the fish pond no longer existed:

Around 1805, the lease was acquired by Joseph Watts who drained the fish pond and constructed Baldwin Street on part of the site. William Hone visited the pool in 1826 and found that very little had changed:

“Trees enough remain to shade the visitor from the heat of the sun on the brink. On a summer evening it is amusing to survey the conduct of the bathers; some boldly dive, others timorous stand and then descend step by step, unwilling and slow; choice swimmers attract attention by divings and somersets, and the whole sheet of water sometimes rings with merriment. Every fine Thursday and Saturday afternoon in the summer columns of Bluecoat boys, more than a score in each, headed by their respective beadles, arrive and some half strip themselves ‘ere they reach their destination. The rapid plunges they make into the Pool and their hilarity in the bath testify their enjoyment of the tepid fluid.” – Lidos in London no longer open

peerless-pool

The Peerless Pool attracted a variety of visitors for over a century, including those boys from the Bluecoat School as previously mentioned.  The attraction was closed in 1850 and built over, and the trees removed. No traces of the old site remain except for the names of Peerless Street and Bath Street. Ironically, the Old Fountain Public House situated on Baldwin Street today maintains an indoor fish tank.

Read more about the Peerless Pool in these links:

  • * Lidos in London no longer open
  • ** In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays by Augustine Birrell
  • Derelict London: Public Pools and Baths

old-fish-pond-peerless-pool

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Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen's World, Regency Life, Regency Period, Regency style, Regency World | Tagged Peerless Pool, Perilous Pond, William Kemp | 9 Comments

9 Responses

  1. on March 4, 2009 at 17:17 aliceaudrey

    That’s quite a shift from Perilous Pond to Peerless Pool. Too bad it closed.


  2. on March 4, 2009 at 19:14 Kellie

    Thank you for the info. I’ve read Death in the Peerless Pool, so I am pleased to get another perspective.

    I believe the Pool is also mentioned in Friday’s Child, another Georgette Heyer.

    Love the site!


  3. on March 4, 2009 at 21:56 Amy

    I’ve never heard of this…great post! Now I really have to read Frederica!


  4. on March 6, 2009 at 00:15 Rachel

    Thanks for posting on this; it’s always great to learn something new!

    I don’t know if you accept blog awards, but I nominated you for one :)


  5. on April 25, 2009 at 00:58 uneekdolldesigns

    What a beautiful blog, so glad to have found it!


  6. on June 22, 2010 at 02:00 room and garden

    Hi, it’s a really nice post! I like reading it.
    Keep up the good work!


  7. on November 29, 2010 at 00:21 Rachel

    I was reading Georgette Heyer’s Friday’s Child, and I was wondering why it was so shocking for Hero to have wanted to go to the pool. This entry gave me no indication, although it did give me hope that you might have an explanation. Any thoughts?


    • on November 29, 2010 at 10:24 Vic

      Rachel, the place was for men and young boys. Hero was a girl!


  8. on December 17, 2012 at 00:12 Elizabeth Silver

    Alverstoke didn’t take the boys there; they went on their own.



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