A Pool Fit for a King (#808)

Jul 3
3 min read

4 July 2026

King Charles happens to be in residence this weekend at nearby Palace of Holyroodhouse, but, though he was a keen swimmer in his youth, I didn't see him at either Friday or Saturday morning's long course lane swimming times at the fantastic Royal Commonwealth Pool:

Speaking of royalty, this pool was officially opened January 16, 1970 by Princess Anne and it was her first ever solo official visit. This facility also has the superlative as the only pool to ever host three different Commonwealth Games - the original 1970 games for which it was built and then again in 1986 and 2014.

As can be seen, though, from the heritage photos around the building ...

... the 2012 refurbishment kept large elements of the structure in place, but made some notable updates:

The original concrete competition pool was updated to be deck-level to allow flowover gutters, 51.5M length to be able to accommodate a bulkhead to create 2 x 25M courses, with a standard 2.0M depth (vs the original sloped depth ranging from 0.9 to 2.0M) and a movable floor for half the competition length which allows for a shallower depth, if needed.
The major change was to switch the angled diving tank, to put a movable floor in that (up to 5.0M) and to structure that as an optional 25M training tank, as can be seen in the photo below.

I was in for an hour on both Friday and Saturday mornings, doing a 3,000-meter quality fly-oriented workout on July 3rd and then a 3,200-meter aerobic 400M free-oriented workout on the 4th. Only half the lanes were open for lane swimming as it appeared that the University of Edinburgh team was training in lanes 5 to 8 on both days. I envied those swimmers, with 1-2 swimmers per lane, but the one fast public swim lane was still sufficiently uncrowded (4-6 total swimmers) so that I could generally stick to my workout plan and intervals.

This is a super-fine pool and most excellent for training, with the massive scoreboard at the locker room end featuring a running time with seconds in large digits, perfect to use as a pace clock at both ends of the pool. With no disrespect to the world-class tank, the absolute best feature of this facility was the individual, cushioned seats in the stands. I don't think I have ever seen a cushioned seat at a swimming pool anywhere in my almost 55 years as a competitive swimmer. This would be such a great place to watch a swimming competition!

Cushioned seats for comfy bums in the grand, grandstands!

I'm not sure if I'll ever be back in Edinburgh. Our food tour on Friday night, featuring all the Scottish classic fare - haggis, cullen skink, black pudding, white pudding, etc. - didn't convince me I need to come back for the cuisine (though we did have a fabulous Asian-influenced meal on Thursday night at Noto). We found the city's architecture to be gorgeous and enjoyed spending the bulk of Friday walking around the city and along the scenic Water of Leith Path in our failed attempt to go to the Hibernian Football Club store to find a "Sunshine on Leith" t-shirt**.