Clipstone Lido

Newspaper cutting 1963

‘Surrounded by snow these women are getting ready for sunnier days. They are a team of do it yourself pit men’s wives who are supervised by one man are building another swimming pool for the Nottingham colliery village of Clipstone. 

Unskilled when they started, they have tackled everything from building a tea room to setting up the pool walls in reinforced concrete. “We love every minute of it” say Betty Cudworth “It’s more fun than housework.” ”After working out here I should go mad inside four walls” says mother of two Edie Lyons.

Petite Vi McCann feels ten feet tall when she looks around at all the Clipstone girls have achieved. “I’ve even learned to swim since I started this job” she says.

Deputy’s wife May Cooper – she has five grandchildren – completes the regular “gang”. They work six days a week and never lost a day through last winters appalling weather. And in the summer they take care of the day to day running of the Lido

 

The information from this newscutting suggests there was once a photograph with it, possibly showing a groups of ladies. It also says they ‘are building another swimming pool’ – was there previously one at Clipstone? We (the editors) have added photographs taken by the CHAD newspaper in 1979 which are headed ‘Clipstone Lido re-opens’ suggesting that some years after all the hard work done by those ladies the Lido closed and re-opened in 1979. It finally closed in ??

 

Clipstone Lido re-opens
Chad J5010 3
Clipstone Lido Re-opens
Vhad J5010 4
Clipstone Lido Re-opens
Chad J5010 2

Comments about this page

  • Someone must have more photos of the lido, these are the only ones I ever seen and tried looking everywhere for more memories, taking packed lunch etc and sit on the field part with towels and blankets scattered. 👍

    By Me (11/03/2024)
  • Had some great times & made some happy memories at the lido

    By Joe (26/11/2022)
  • We spent 4 years in Newlands in the early 60s and me and my friends spent some fantastic all day sessions in the lido, I went to the local Samuel Barlow Junior school between the age of 6 and 11 learned to swim there, plenty of room for picnics and kickabouts over 50 years ago and I still remember it fondly.     

    By Tommy Mcgowan (09/09/2016)
  • Clipstone lido was only ever on this site. There were no other pools in Clipstone. The original pools were located at the lower end of the site, closest to the main Mansfield Road. There was one pool which was effectively a toddlers paddling pool, which was around 8-12″ deep, and around 15′ x 10′ pool was of similar size, but was 24″ deep. The larger pool that is seen in these photo’s was 3′ deep at the shallow end and 4’6″ deep at the other end. It was a good sized pool, around 70-80′ long and about 20′ wide. The top “diving” pool was situated behind the fences in the picture. This was slightly smaller in size to the “middle” pool, but was 4′ deep at the shallow end, and over 9′ deep in the diving end. Initially, there was a scaffold tower with diving platforms, with different height diving points. Next to the tower was a sprung, traditional diving board. In the later years of the lido, the diving tower was removed, due to the anchorage becoming unstable. Around all 4 corners of the site, there were four “foot pools” these were for rinsing feet before entering the pools, and were fed with the same water circulation as the main pools. Up until the late 1970’s there was also a “hot house” on the site. This was basically a lean to glass house built on the side of the boiler/pump house. You could sit in there and use as a sort of sauna to warm up in on cloudy days. There was also a canteen/shop on site, a first aid/medical room and a row of changing rooms that ran the length of the main site facing the pools. The lido provided fantastic entertainment for the children of the region, it was cheap/subsidised entry from Clipstone miners welfare, and for a few pence, you could gain entry from 10am to 5pm right through the summer months. Taking in your own food/drinks although no glass bottles or alcohol were allowed in. It also provided a refreshing facility for the miners that had been on days at the pit, and finished at 2pm. Many of them would enjoy a couple of pints in the welfare, then come and have a swim in the sunshine at Clipstone Lido.

    As for the reopening in 1979? The Lido re-opened every year, in May. It was always eagerly anticipated, and I would suggest the photo in the Chad news pages, was merely a shot of what happened at the start of every summertime. Clipstone Lido was open again, until the end of August/Early September. The beginning of the new school year normally marked the end of the season for Clipstone Lido.

    Sadly, the Lido closed its doors for the last time in August 1984.

    By Andrew Childs (19/03/2014)
  • Loved the lido, and mr splash was brill he taught more kids how to swim and enjoy water. pity it closed

    By sue (18/07/2013)
  • It was really nice to see the photographs of the Lido. I have so many happy memories of the place despite being thrown into the middle of the 4′-6″ end by my brother Frank on my first visit. We were so lucky having the Lido on our doorstep, and we spent much of the spring and summer in all kinds of weather having fun! Does anyone else remember Mr SPLASH entertaining everyone with his daredevil comic displays off the diving boards? Priceless!

    By Robert Fisher (09/07/2013)
  • The new pool was behind the white fence at the top of these photos. It had a very deep end and a high diving board. The fence was to stop little kids wandering in. The pool shown here is the old one, also the biggest and I think it was only 3 or 4 feet deep at the deepest end.

    By H Livingstone (02/04/2012)

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