Pool Review: Surrey Sports Park (Guildford) - #821

5 September 2026

I had signed up for tomorrow's Berks & South Bucks County Masters meet awhile back (as I do), both to swim in the Bracknell Leisure Centre pool and to get some "racing reps" in. I entered before I figured out the travel logistics to arrive in time for the "day of event" confirmation (check-in by 9:15am)

Then, a number of weeks ago, I saw the 3 bus - 1 tube - 1 train approximately three-hour journey that would have required me to leave home at 5:30am ... and I thought, "There's got to be a better way."

Then, my wife's sister-in-law lured her to Italy for a ladies trip, departing London this morning.

Then, I realized how close the Guildford Lido was to Bracknell; this highly regarded pool has been high on my bucket list for a long time now, but I've never gotten there for the distance.

Then, while perusing Places2Swim, I saw that the 50-meter Surrey Sports Park was also in this neck of the woods and it had late afternoon long course lanes on Saturday.

And thus a plan was hatched:

• Rent a cheap car

• Grab a cheap hotel room for Saturday night in Guildford**

• Notch up three new pools in less than 24 hours: Surrey Sports Park tonight, Guildford Lido first thing Sunday morning, then racing at Bracknell.

I jumped into the eight-lane (2.5-meters wide), two-meter constant depth, 50-meter pool about 5pm today ...

... for a 1,500-meter warmup / stretch-out swim. The pool was split with their age group team in lanes 1-4, lane 5 left as a buffer lane***, and lanes 6-8 reserved for lane swimming. They had the scoreboard setup as a massive pace clock (which was awesome for some pace 50s ahead of my 800 free race tomorrow), but I couldn't take a picture from deck level on account of the kids team being there.

Beyond the beautiful pool, I experienced about the best swim lane etiquette I have ever seen and something I almost never swim: as I and then a couple of other faster (than the current swimmers in the fast lane) swimmers got going, some of the "slower-fast-lane" swimmers actually moved over to the medium lane!!

Oh! If only more swimmers had that speed-lane-awareness!

Whoever you swimmers were, thank you!

This facility was built in 2010 and it did serve as a pre-2012 Olympic training site for a number of countries, including at least Spain which I found documented here. While it doesn't appear there were any common architectural teams between this and the London Aquatics Centre, they both share a "wave-form" roof and use of wood as part of that wave form. While the London facility is far more dramatic, this facility did cut a nice profile in the gorgeous bluebird day:

** I most definitely do not recommend the Travelodge Guildford should anyone need to be in these parts :(

***This seemed like a sub-optimal use of space; my only complaint with the swim experience.