Reading & Relaxing (#752 and #753)

30 August 2025

My wife went to Paris for the weekend to connect with her (practically) lifelong friend, who happened to be there for a few days en route from Alberta to Switzerland. So, with a Saturday all to myself, I figured I had to choose an equally magnficent city for some pool tourism - Reading!

While it doesn't conjure up quite the same romance, grandeur, history, importance ... or really any of the superlatives that Paris offers ... what Reading does have is this ...

The Thames Lido is a gorgeously restored, secluded relaxation paradise (for swimmers and non-swimmers alike). This structure dates to 1902, built in Reading’s King’s Meadow as the Ladies Swimming Baths, a secluded outdoor pool specifically for Edwardian women. Its elegant design—with no windows to ensure privacy—and its use of water directly from the nearby River Thames characterized its early history.

Like a lot of lidos in the UK and elsewhere, it suffered from neglect as the years went by and it closed in 1974. Somehow, the structure survived, though dilapadating over the ensuing years, and a grass roots community effort managed to get the building a Grade II designation, meaning that it could not be demolished, that the interior and exterior needed to be protected,. Re-development was possible within those constraints and approval by getting Listed Building Consent from the local planning authority. It took another decade to get the right developer and plans, with the renovation happening between 2014 and 2017, finally re-opening three-plus decades after closure in this incarnation.

I first got the idea to swim here thanks to another "pool tourist / blogger" - check out Swim History Girl's experience here in the summer of 2024.

The facility's main features are:

• The pool - an interesting 24.68M length with a constant 1.2M depth - heated to 25°C when I was there, is all tile without any sort of lane designations. With that said, it's pretty much designated as a "swimmers' pool" with three "lanes" indicated by chalkboards at the far end of the picture above. As it was a rainy & blustery day on Saturday late afternoon when I was there, I had the pool mostly to myself.

• A hot tub (which sits just out of view of the picture above in the foreground).

• Inside the walls, again facing the view of the pool you see above, are a large dry sauna and steam room, along with traditional and ice showers.

• Wrapping in an L-shape (from the far end of the picture above around to the right) is a bar and restaurant.

I took advantge of a swim (pool #753) + massage + meal package - which gave me 2 hours of access to the pool / hot tub / sauna / steam room, an hour long massage and dinner (main plus side) for £105, a price I considered to be a bargain given the high quality of everything on offer.

I'm really struggling to define what was the best part of the experience ... quite possibly the meal - an perfectly cooked duck with a side of, I think, the best potatoes I have had in my life.

I managed to while away the late afternoon into the evening, and emerged completely relaxed ....

.... which I kind of needed after my "run-in" with the lifeguard aka "Pool Picture Police" earlier that morning at pool #752:

There is no vantage point from inside to take a picture of the pool, so I figured I would snap a pic through the glass walls from outside of the pool. Just after I did that, a lifeguard barged outside and asked me what I was doing.

I explained my quixotic #1001Pools quest and she explained that photography was not allowed.

I showed her the picture and … she too agreed this was a horrible picture. And she walked back inside, more puzzled with me than I with this “no pictures at pools” rule.

All-in-all, it was a great day. I took the town's name as my guide for what to do when I wasn't swimming, and spent all of my spare time reading Paul Theroux's excellent Dark Star Safari, between the train, lunch at a great Ethiopian restaurant (which seemed appropriate for my reading material), and at the library:

I'm sure my wife thinks she got the better end of the travel bargain on this day ... but that's part of the secret to making our 31 year marriage work!