There’s a specific smell that gets you when you step into a very old swimming pool. Not nasty simply ancient, slightly mineral, retaining the faint memory of every swimmer who has ever been through. York’s Yearsley Swimming Pool smells like that. It also includes century-old tiles, a 50-yard Edwardian pool that dwarfs most modern leisure centres, and a position situated between the River Foss and what was previously the Rowntree chocolate factory. It’s an interesting combo, and it works.
The history of the pool begins with water, notably the River Foss, where the original Yearsley Baths opened in 1859, rather than with physical structures. The current building came later, gifted to the people of York by Joseph Rowntree in 1908 and originally heated using steam pumped across from his adjoining business.
That’s the kind of detail that makes you stop and envision it: the fragrance of chocolate floating over a Victorian swimming pool, workers returning after a shift on the manufacturing floor. It’s difficult to determine if that image is totally correct, but it’s a powerful one. The location has a significance that more recent establishments just cannot match because of its linkages to Rowntree and the larger narrative of York’s working population.
The pool nearly vanished several times. Closure was threatened in the 1990s and again in 2014, and each times local campaigners pushed back strongly enough to keep it open. This kind of devotion to the community doesn’t just appear. Weekly attendance at aqua aerobics courses, Saturday family sessions, and early morning lane swims takes decades. Yearsley possesses all of that.
It’s easy to understand why reviews frequently describe it as feeling like an indoor lido as you stroll by the pool today. Even by national standards, the 50-yard length is extremely uncommon, and it is divided into broad lanes that never feel cramped. Most serious swimmers appear to enjoy the cooler water temperature, and the chlorine levels are kept in check. Scale and atmosphere more than make up for its lack of refined modernity. The tiles are outdated. The showers are somewhat outdated. Hot drinks are dispensed from the lobby vending machine for a nostalgic price. Those who routinely swim here say that none of it is very important.
The pool has advanced in several intriguing ways under the management of GLL, the nonprofit social company that currently runs the site. Early results from the installation of solar panels in March are startling: a 51% decrease in the amount of electricity drawn from the national grid, with annual savings of up to £30,000 and a carbon reduction of about 29 tonnes.
James Howard, the pool manager, has been open about how significantly lower operating costs provide the facility a more secure future exactly the kind of assurance a structure that has threatened closure twice in living memory probably needs to hear. It’s still uncertain how rapidly those savings will compound, but the trend is good.
The programs on offer is broader than you might expect from a facility its age. All ages and skill levels can take swimming lessons. Aqua aerobics programs attract in a faithful clientele. Aqua Splash caters to younger swimmers establishing confidence.
On Saturdays, an underwater hockey club takes over a section of the pool a detail that reveals something about the breadth of community the place actually serves. The 4.4-star Google rating, which is based on more than 391 reviews, shows a recurring trend: customers return and frequently highlight the personnel in their reviews.
It’s difficult to ignore the fact that locations like Yearsley are becoming less common rather than more prevalent. A full-size, 50-yard pool in a historic structure, run as a community facility, within walking distance of a city centre that’s not a combination that appears in many new-build leisure programs. It’s worthwhile to consider if York truly values what it has on Haxby Road. Those who swim here on a weekly basis most likely do.
i) https://www.better.org.uk/leisure-centre/york/yearsley-pool
ii) https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Attraction_Review-g186346-d4356680-Reviews-Yearsley_Swimming_Pool-York_North_Yorkshire_England.html