This is a tale of two very different pools. The first is a large and fairly regular rectangular pool and the second, an innovative fun pool with islands. The land was originally gifted to the city by William Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, the 7th Earl Fitzwilliam. The council added to the land and by the 1930’s, in addition to the swimming pool, there was a separate padding pool and other sporting facilities.
The pool was funded by a loan of £10,500 and construction started in March 1929. Admission was free but there was a charge to hire towels. The pool opened Sundays and mixed bathing was permitted.
The pool was opened on 15th August 1929 by the Lord Mayor Alderman Harry Bolton, who had a lifelong interest in swimming and had suggested the pool 18 years previously. 15,000 people attended the ceremony which was followed by exhibition swimming, high and fancy diving by Olive Flint, a show by Madame Hazeldene and her Water Babies, and a water polo match between Croft House and City Police.
Running alongside the pool was a long and narrow paddling pool that remained after the pool was demolished and replaced.
As the original pool was open all year, they used to have to break the ice in winter. If you helped and swam in the water all year, you were allowed to join The Spartans who had free admission to the pool from then on.
In 1968 an inspection showed cracks in the base of the pool. It closed shortly after and a the new pool using hexagonal motifs was designed and opened in 1970. Local residents remember the pool closing during the 1980’s but nothing definitive has been found.
This record benefits from many photographs reproduced from https://picturesheffield.com/, following their copyright requirements to show the source and image number. You can search this resource for additional pictures and locate specific examples using the picture reference number shown in the gallery.
| Name | Millhouses Park Abbeydale Road South, Sheffield, S17 3LA |
| Built / opened | 15th August 1929 by the Lord Mayor Alderman Harry Bolton then, 1970 |
| Cost | 1929 – £10,500 1970 – £70,000 |
| Dimensions | 1929 – 300′ x 100′ (scaled from aerial image) 1970 – 400′ x 100′ (scaled from aerial image) |
| Capacity | |
| Water type | Fed from River Sheaf, filtered, unheated |
| Depth(s) | Up to 9′ |
| Diving boards | 2 x 1m springboards, 3m and 5m fixed platforms |
| Changing facilities | |
| Second pool | Adjacent long and narrow paddling “river” |
| Spectator seating | |
| Designer | |
| Date closed | 1929 – 1968 1970 – some time during 1980’s, infilled early 1990’s |
| Status | Demolished |
| On site now | Grassed over |
| Notes | |
| Links | |
| Last updated | 16th March 2025 |
Baths Service Journal, October 1969
New Style Swimming Pool at Sheffield
Sheffield folk are looking forward to enjoying themselves in a new-style lido at Millhouses Park next year.
It’s a revolutionary design planned by the City Architect’s Department — two pools, one for children and one for grown-ups, based on the slopes of the Giant’s Causeway rock formation in Ireland.
This £70,000 imaginative plan does away with the old straight edge concept for swimming pools and introduces a design to provide the pools based on a series of hexagons. The new suntrap lido may be a conversion of the old Millhouses pool but there will be very little for swimmers to recognise when it opens.
Work on the junior section of the lido has been left until late in the project so a completely new filtration and water plant could be installed. Work on the lido started a year ago following the closing of the old open-air pool in Millhouses Park.
It was decided to completely modernise the pool. The hexagonal designs have now taken shape to form a lido which will be ‘ very much a place for the whole family. With the old pool unless someone was going to swim, they weren’t allowed into the area,’ said S. J. H. Ellis, M.Inst.B.M., told Baths Service. With the new one we will be supplying deck-chairs for them to sit in the sun. Mothers who don’t want to swim can keep an eye on their children, and enjoy the trees and the grass as well.’
A kiosk selling refreshments is being provided in the new lido and it too will be based on the hexagonal design. Mr Ellis thinks the pool will be the only one of its kind, certainly in this country. “You won’t be able to hold races here the shape won’t allow it,” he said. “But that’s not the idea. It is meant or people to come along and enjoy themselves.”
About the only thing that will remain at the park pool will be the changing rooms that were built relatively recently. In January this year the Lido Scheme was ranked in the first five of a competition for projects
which are being undertaken throughout the country to serve the public.
The second pool / lido was not filled in until the early Nineties. Do mention the famous (locally) Spartans Club. As the original pool was open all year, they used to have to break the ice in winter. If you helped and swam in the water all year, you were allowed to join The Spartans who had free admission to the pool from then on! The pool was fed from the River Sheaf, so unheated, but filtered.
And talking of Sheffield, what about the long forgotten Spooner Wheels pool? This was a mill dam on the Rivelin valley which was turned into a proper open air swimming facility by the council before the war.
Thank you for the additional information, which I have added to the main entry. I’ve got Rivelin Valley as an entry but I haven’t done any research on this pool yet. Is this the same as Spooners Wheel?