Saltdean Lido

Saltdean Lido

A lido with ancillary building, designed in 1938 by RWH Jones in Moderne style. The building was refurbished around 1964 and again around 1997. A later north library and community centre extension was added in 1964 and is of lesser architectural interest.

The structure is built of reinforced concrete with sprayed cement finish painted white. Flat roofs are overlaid with concrete tiles or bituminous felt. Metal Crittall windows with horizontal glazing bars are used throughout.

The ancillary building is symmetrically planned over two storeys with a projecting semi-circular central block and curvilinear wings. Originally the ground floor sides contained changing rooms with a central café, while the upper floor had sun terraces and a solarium. The rectangular pool is fitted with an elliptical shape on its north-east side, following the curve of the ancillary building.

The central block projects a concrete canopy at first-floor level with metal pipe railings extending almost the full width of the wings. Five slender concrete piers support this canopy and rise as vertical mullions through the glazed first-floor walls. The recessed ground floor features tall casement windows and side entrances to the centre of the building, while the first floor contains 14 full-height French windows. Large projecting letters spelling "SALTDEAN LIDO" are mounted on the curved fascia above metal railings. Above this sits a solarium with rounded ends and a projecting flat canopy. The curved wings each have four shallow casement windows with central half-glazed wooden doors at ground level. The upper floor of the wings comprises sunbathing terraces with screen walls, cantilevered canopies for shade, stepped cornices and curved blank walls at the ends, which originally housed chair stores. The north-west elevation wings retain narrow casement windows. The side elevations of the central part have four windows and a recessed doorcase; the north-west side is now obscured by the 1964 extension.

The interior ground floor has lost its original central staircase to the first floor, though curved concrete staircases survive at the sides. Original pipework to the boiler room and a door with a porthole window remain, but no original fittings survive in the changing rooms. The upper floor contains a large hall with a stage at one end, with ceiling beams supported on two rows of plain columns, a parquet floor and the original staircase to the roof.

The original three-tiered curved fountain survives in the centre of the north-east side of the pool. In the 1990s the pool was divided into two sections, with the western pool being a shallower children's pool separated by a central snake-shaped path with a mast.

Saltdean Lido was completed in July 1938 on the Saltdean estate, developed by Charles Neville from the 1920s to mid-1930s with houses and bungalows in Tudor, Spanish and Italian styles, and three Cubist houses dating around 1934 by Connell, Ward and Lucas. The lido replaced a bowling green and tennis grounds. RWH Jones also designed the 1938 Ocean Hotel at Saltdean (Grade II listed).

The design appears to have drawn inspiration from contemporary ocean liner and aircraft design, and possibly from the De La Warr Pavilion (1933–6) at Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex (Grade I), designed by Eric Mendelsohn and Serge Chermayeff. Saltdean Lido was oriented south-east towards the sea with a sea water pool featuring a central fountain on the curved north-east side and a central diving stage on the straight south-west side. A separate children's paddling pool, rectangular with one curved side, was positioned to the south-west. The building served as a backdrop to the pools and contained a solarium, curved central and end staircases, male and female changing rooms in the side wings with separate divisions for towels, hangers, dressing boxes and toilets. The ground-floor rear housed a large room containing the water heating and pumping system, fuel store, staff room and staff stair, while the upper floor central section comprised a café and kitchen and the curved side wings had open sun terraces with chair stores at the ends. Vehicular access was to the rear, where a boating lake originally stood alongside an elaborate rock garden on the western embankment.

After just two summer seasons, Saltdean Lido closed in September 1940 following the outbreak of World War II. The auxiliary fire service moved in and used the pool as a water tank. Male dressing rooms were converted into a temporary church and female sections into a Sunday School. Although the fire service left in 1945, the lido remained closed to the public for nineteen years. In 1962 Brighton Town Council issued a compulsory purchase order and bought the property for £20,000. Refurbishment plans costing £86,000 included a two-storey library and community centre extension to the north-west, covering the site of the former boating lake. The tall chimneystack serving the boiler room was removed at the same time. Saltdean Lido reopened on 4 July 1964. Further external alterations to the rear extension were made in the late 1970s.

The lido closed again in 1995 due to falling attendances and the need for repairs. In 1997 it was leased from the council for 125 years at a peppercorn rent, with repairs to the pool financed by the sale of land behind the building on which a public house was constructed. Saltdean Lido reopened on 23 May 1998 with the ground floor of the original building converted into a health club and the upper café area rented to a community association. As part of the refurbishment the main pool was divided into two with a snaking path between them, creating a shallower children's pool to the west, and a tall mast was erected on the central path.