How To Find Central London’s Secret Outdoor Swimming Pool
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16 hours ago
Hidden in the West End, in-the-know Londoners have been cooling off here for years
Did you know there’s an outdoor swimming pool hidden in London’s West End? Before you bat it off as a luxury hotel, the amenity of an exclusive members’ club or a luxurious gym with a hefty price tag, we’re here to let you in on an open secret. Covent Garden’s only heated outdoor swimming pool is council operated – and totally open to the public.
Operated by Better Health UK and Camden Council, Oasis Sports Centre is home to a gym, squash courts, fitness studios, a 25 metre indoor pool and a 27.5 metre swimming pool flanked by a sunbathing deck and overlooked by a sauna. Sounds like a treat for modern Londoners, but Oasis’ history actually stretches back to the 18th century. Here’s what you need to know, plus how to visit.
Covent Garden’s Outdoor Swimming Pool: What You Need To Know
Oasis Sports Centre (Matt Brown, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
A Brief History
Open air swimming pools are du jour, with swanky hotels and members’ clubs across London scrambling to open their own while Londoners race against the crowds to secure a spot at one of the lidos. But one of London’s oldest outdoor swimming pools is, and always has been, open to all.
The Oasis pool may not be as famous as its London neighbours like Parliament Hill or Brockwell Lido, but its history (and location) are just as rich – and there’s nothing more charming than a word of mouth gem. That said, rocking up on a hot summer’s day, you’ll wonder whether there’s anyone left in London who doesn’t know about this open air swimming pool. Snap up your slot ASAP: it gets busy. (More on that below.)
As London’s most centrally-located public swim spot, the earliest evidence of a swimming pool on the Oasis Sports Centre site dates back to 1728 when the property was a Bagnio, a Turkish bath. By 1840, the Turkish bath had been replaced by the Bloomsbury Baths and Washhouses, home to two indoor swimming baths. Between 1900 and 1902, the pools were rebuilt and reopened again, this time as Holborn Baths.
Flash forward to the 1930s, and work on a new pool began: the open air marvel we know today. Curtailed by the outbreak of WWII, the half-completed open air swimming pool was repurposed as a water tank used by the London Fire Brigade, making use of the extradorinary length (27.5 metres, or 30 yards) and depth (3.5 metres) in the centre of a built-up city.
Eventually Oasis was fit (and used) for purpose in 1946. But tightening British belts post-war, a few changes had to be made. Originally intended to be covered, the pool was left outdoors to cut costs, while parts from old air raid shelters were used to create diving platforms and gas decontamination rooms were repurposed as the pool’s first changing rooms. But the result is a rare outdoor swimming pool smack bang in the middle of the city – and Londoners have been loving it ever since
Way ahead of the sauna boom we’ve seen in recent years, in 1972, the pool was joined by the UK’s very first local authority-managed sauna. In the ‘70s, future Madness frontman Suggs would swim in the pool, which he describes as ‘exactly what it’s called – an oasis in the middle of the city’ in an episode of his 2008 ITV documentary series Suggs’ Survivors. Suggs swam in the council-run pool as a child, and explains ‘my mum lived near it, and still does, so I would go quite regularly. But when I went back to film I had not been there for 20 years and it is still something to behold.’ Around this time, Peter Stechman was the pool manager; he explains in the documentary how he ‘used to have to kick skinheads out [of the pool’ in the 1980s’. ‘They’d climb in and then jump about with no clothes on,’ he explains.
In the ’80s, London land being scant, offices and flats were built on top of Oasis Sports Centre, creating more of an enclosed, hidden atmosphere at the pool, which is now surrounded by buildings. In 1989, a heating system was added to the open air pool – a practice later copied by Hampton Pool and London Fields Lido – to make swimming possible year-round. In the mid-1990s, the building was overhauled, bringing the layout closer to what we see today: the large sports hall was transformed into the main gym, while the sauna was moved outside to make way for a dance studio. Throughout all of this time, the site was also a public laundry serving the local area of Holborn and Covent Garden – but the laundry facilities were finally shut down with this overhaul.
This is around the same time my grandparents discovered Oasis, meeting up after a long day at their separate city workplaces and cooling off in the open air swimming pool. When I first moved to London in 2021, they implored I pay the pool a visit – and the word of mouth reputation lives on. It looks a little different today than the pool they visited: the building was upgraded again in 2009 thanks to a £1 million investment from Camden Council after garnering a reputation for dirty changing rooms and hot water always on the blink.
Here’s what to expect at Oasis Sports Centre today.
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The Facilities
As well as the 27.5 metre long pool (heated to 26°C), visitors will find a large sunbathing deck and saunas on Oasis Sports Centre’s outdoor terrace. Inside, male and female changing rooms are available with lockers for storing valuables. There are additional cubicles and showers available outside, too.
Where & When?
Oasis Sports Centre is located in the heart of Covent Garden on the corner of High Holborn and Endell St in an unassuming, office-like building. The Centre is open everyday: 6.30am to 10pm on weekdays and 9.30am to 6pm on weekends.
Address: 32 Endell St, London WC2H 9AG
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Prices & How To Book
There are a few ways to secure your spot at Oasis’ outdoor swimming pool. Either way, it’s highly recommended to book in advance on the Better app or online.
The easiest way to book is selecting a 50 minute swimming session, labelled either Swim for Fitness (lane swimming) or Swim for All (more casual paddling). This is priced at £8.10. Children are welcome at the Swim for All sessions, so long as they are supervised by an adult; junior passes (5–15 years) are £2.70, with children aged 4 and under swimming for free..
Alternatively, you can book a Sunbathe & Stay pass for £20. This means you can swim and sunbathe on Oasis’ terrace all day long (within opening hours).
If you’d like to swim more frequently, consider signing up for a membership. Oasis Sports Centre memberships are £49/month (£12.50 set up fee), including access to all facilities and classes on site.
Alternatively, a Better Swim UK membership is priced at £41/month (£12.50 set up fee) and grants access to all of Better’s 140 plus swimming pools and lidos across the country. In London, this includes London Fields Lido and Charlton Lido.
Towels and swimwear are not provided, although a range of swimming items are available for sale at the centre’s reception.
