Bude open-air sea water swimming pool

Coastal Lidos and Tidal Pools

The main Lido building period was in the 1930s when outdoor swimming became popular, and 169 were built across the UK. In this period, it became as essential for a seaside town to have a lido as it had been to have a pier in the late 1800s.

The popularity of open water or wild swimming is growing all the time. But those nervous by the prospect of swimming in the open sea are embracing the opportunity of being able to swim in coastal tidal pools.

Sadly, many lidos and tidal pools sank into decline decades ago, falling out of favour with swimmers, but now many are being revived with the new demand for open-air swimming. Often the revival is by local groups running as charities or by volunteering time.

Here we list not only the original Lidos but also tidal seawater swimming pools and newer open-air swimming pools that are still running and at the mercy of the UK weather. We have restricted our list to coastal counties in the UK and so some pools may still be some distance from the actual sea.

Aberdeenshire

Ayrshire

Bristol

Channel Islands

Cheshire

Cornwall

Newtrain Bay or Rocky Beach, Trevone, Padstow, Cornwall

Cumbria

Devon

Durham

East Sussex

Essex

Fife

Gloucestershire

Hampshire

Inverclyde

Kent

Lancashire

Lincolnshire

North Yorkshire

Somerset

Suffolk

Swansea Bay and The Gower

The Scottish Highlands

West Sussex

We recommend you check the opening details as, in many cases, Lidos are struggling to keep going and are often run by volunteers and opening depends on staffing availability.

If we don’t use these facilities, we will lose them as many struggle to stay open and depend on local community support, please support the lido and outdoor pools.