This site has a long history of pools, both indoor and outdoor plus public washouses and laundries. It has been altered and refurbished a number of times. The data in the table relates to the 1948 re-build which is largely what we have today as far as the pool is concerned although the surrounding buildings have had further re-builds with additional sports facilities and an indoor pool being added.
The pool buildings suffered from an IRA bomb attack in the late 1970’s but the pool apparently opened only 30 minutes late!
| Name | Oasis Holborn 32 Endell Street, Holborn, WC2H 9AG |
| Built | Various iterations from 1728 as a Turkish Bath and 1852 as an indoor pool. 1949 as first open air pool. |
| Opened | 1949 (current tank) |
| Cost | £6,500 |
| Dimensions | 90′ x 10′ |
| Capacity | |
| Water type | |
| Depth(s) | 3′ to 11′ 6″ |
| Diving boards | |
| Changing facilities | |
| Second pool | Indoor pool 25m x 9m |
| Designer | Mr. E. H. Whittle, M.N.A.B.S. Manager-Engineer of the Baths Department |
| Date closed | N/A |
| Status | Open |
| On site now | The pool |
| Notes | |
| Links | Oasis Sports Centre IRA bombs explode in Central London | Reuters Archive All The Swimming Pools REVIEWED – Oasis Leisure Centre, Covent Garden Friends of Oasis Sports Centre (London) | Groups | Facebook |
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The pool was first built as the “Bagnio”, a Turkish Bath.
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The Turkish bath closed
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The site was reopened by local parishes as the “Bloomsbury Baths and Washhouses”. At that time there were two indoor swimming baths.
Between 1900 and 1902 the baths were rebuilt and reopened as “Holborn Baths”. This had two covered pools.
The site was due to be modernised after an architectural competition the “Swimstad” plan was approved. Building started in 1937 when the two existing pools were demolished but work halted at the start of the war.
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After the war, cash shortages lead to the complex not being completed and it was converted to an outdoor swimming pool using wartime gas decontamination rooms as changing facilities. Much of the work to reopen the outdoor pool was carried out by staff using discarded war materials.
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The reconfigured pool opened. See article below for details.
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In 1960, the outdoor pool size was reduced to 27.5 by 9.5 metres, and a 25 x 9 metre indoor pool was added to the site using all plant materials and pool sizes were made to metric specifications with the Becco sand filters as well as being rubber lined. There is also a child’s paddling pool termed ‘Kiddies Corner’. The upper sun terrace was designed to give a ‘ship’s deck’ atmosphere. The rebuilding works were funded by a planning benefit arranged by Stanley Thomas, Chair of Holborn BC Leisure with the Hammersons group. It included the 10 storey office block, Berkshire House, as a facade and front entrance from High Holborn plus sun bathing terraces built above the indoor pool and the rear underground car park area.
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In 1972 the first Local Authority run Sauna Cabins were opened.
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During the IRA campaign, a car bomb was placed outside the front entrance to the office block in High Holborn, with the result that all 10 floor windows, back and front, were blown out. Security staff were injured, but fortunately there were no fatalities. The pool opened the next day, via a back entrance, only 30 minutes later than its normal time.
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In 1983 the site was reconfigured. The entrance building on Endell Street was demolished and offices, a new public and establishment laundry plus warm baths and shower facilities, were installed on the ground floor. Three floors of sheltered housing for elderly people were built above this, and Dudley Court occupied the ground of the demolished Workhouse at the rear. Skeletons were found in the workhouse earth basements of the former workhouse inmates, which stopped work for a while.
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Installation of full width Glatz Pioneer heat retention cover enabled the heated outdoor pool all year round. This practice was later copied by other London pool operators, Hampton and London Fields Lido.
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Dry sports area consisting of two multi use activity halls and 3 glass backed squash courts were added.
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From 1986 to 1987 the indoor pool was closed for refurbishment, the pool surround was waterproofed, and the Esavian sliding ships doors were removed and replaced with a permanent brick and glass partition, while the outdoor pool stayed open.
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Main sports hall was converted to a multi exercise equipment gym and the sauna was relocated to the previous warm baths and shower area to provide a dance studio. The public laundry that had served the Holborn and Covent Garden area for decades was shut down.
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Following complaints from users about the deterioration of the building fabric, the Oasis was refurbished again at the end of the 2000s.
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Outdoor pool closed for 4 weeks for an upgrade.
From ” Holborn Guardian” 1949
RE-OPENING OF THE OASIS.
With the opening of the reconstructed Oasis in Endell Street, W.C.2, Holborn Borough Council has
won for itself the distinction of being the first local authority to construct a swimming pool since the war.
Feature article from The Baths Service, July 1949
HOLBORN’S NEW POOL
The Nation-wide publicity afforded to this, the first post-war bath venture to be completed and put to service in its present form, would appear to merit more detailed information than has so far been given by the popular press, whose main concern has been ‘ News value ” and tabloid captions.
To enable the Baths Service to view the development of this scheme through its several stages, it is necessary to review its history.
Until excavations were begun in November, 1948, tradition had it that a swimming bath had stood on the site in Queen Anne’s time more than 200 years ago ; this tradition now appeared to have been founded on fact, as evidence came to light of an ornamented surround complete with a drainage system, and later a section of the bath bottom paved in brick, apparently fireclay, glazed with smooth duck egg blue.
Other evidence indicated approximate date; George III and IV coins; glazed earthenware cooking vessels of early Georgian pattern.
Prior to 1900.
The swimming bath superimposed on the Queen Anne Bath remains; possessed features of note, in that it was divided into two by means of a cast iron grille running across it; and as its sides were shallow and deep respectively along their full length, each section had its own shallow and deep ends.
Class was indicated only by the price of admission, and a subtle inference on the ticket inasmuch that the 6d. ticket said to SWIM, the 4d. ticket to PLUNGE. However, this division appeared to present some difficulty to the then Bath Beadle (Superintendent), owing to the PLUNGERS venturing under the screen and mixing with the higher-class SWIMMERS.
This Bath Beadle appears to have been a worthy predecessor to his renamed fraternity as; to enforce a more rigid rule of class distinction, he had a cast iron interlock ring net hung from the screen, until an unfortunate gate crasher caught himself in the net and was hanged. This marked the end of both the screen and the net, and with the completion in 1901 of a first class bath 90 x28 immediately adjacent the small odd-shaped original was designated 2nd class, and so it remained, until now when, squared up, it has become the shallow end of the new open air pool.
The history of this little bath would not be complete without passing mention of its service as a static water tank during the war, when a large bomb exploded 20 feet from its side, but failed to mark it.
In 1938 the two swimming bath structures were demolished and a start made on an ambitious scheme known as the Holborn Swimstad, which was to house a huge international bath 50 metres in length with a full tariff of metric Diving Stages up to the high 10 metre.
1939 and the war marked the suspension of building activities, which had not progressed beyond a new boiler house and a retaining wall.
During the war a squat little structure was erected on the site to serve as a food decontamination centre; this suitably adapted serves as dressing rooms and clothes storage with a capacity of 250 bathers per hour.
1945, the end of the war, found the Baths site in a woeful state, but by the next year much had been done, and by May 1946, the static water tank had been cleared out, lined with asphalte, painted with white line road paint, and coupled up to the renovated filter plant stored in an adjoining basement.
A 4 and ½ inch wall enclosed the bath surrounds and incorporated a war-time mortuary used then as a Club Room, later as a cafe, and so with a civic inauguration ceremony in which the Mayor of the Borough, Alderman W. E. Mullen, O.B.E., played an important Aquatic role, the bath was declared open.
17,000 persons were accommodated during the season, and this totally unexpected patronage made further development necessary; and as the cost of the whole adaptations to date had only been £800, the Borough Council did not hesitate to proceed further.
In 1947, the adjoining bath bottom slab, all that remained of the 1st class 1901 bath, was given a cement screed to hide its scars ; gardens were formed along its length ; rockeries made of bomb rubble were formed and planted where levels were acute; terraces were formed to flank the pool surrounds, and a paddling pool with planned sand pits incorporated into the general scheme for the children’s use. The scheme now earned a new name, and by virtue of its unique provisions in the heart of the Metropolis, became known as the OASIS.
47,000 persons were accommodated in this season, but 1947 had truly an exceptionally fine summer season.
In 1948 the surrounds were modified to provide maximum space for sunbathers, and the dressing accommodation replanned for greater numbers per hour, i.e., 400 maximum.
The popularity of the OASIS now achieved “boomerang” peculiarities, and in one week 16,800 persons availed themselves of a place in the sun, during the one memorable week of that sub-normal summer, with its almost complete absence of bathing weather. Still, even then over 37,000 persons were accommodated and over 2,000 taught to swim during this season, with a pool 36 feet x 45 feet x 6 feet.
Queues outside the Baths were unnecessary, ample dressing accommodation avoided their forming; queues inside the baths now formed to get into the water! With the past three years’ experience to guide further development, the Council decided to enlarge the water area and deepen the pool to allow provision to be made for diving.
A Pool 90 feet x 32 feet with depths 3 feet to 11 feet 6 inches, the latter as a diving area, was planned. A new Cafe, diving stages 1 metre, 3 metres and 5 metres, and wider surrounds were envisaged, with the whole scheme embracing a pleasant colour scheme. The Borough Architect, Mr. S. A. G. Cook, L.R.I.B.A., was responsible for the planning. Contractors, Messrs. C. P. Roberts and Co., High Holborn, W.C.1. The whole of the engineering works, diving stage fabrication and auxiliaries, including surface water draw-off, were carried out by the Baths Engineering Staff, under the direction of the Manager-Engineer of the Baths Department, Mr. E. H. Whittle, M.N.A.B.S.
Electrical installations, including cafe layout and public address, were planned, and executed by Mr. N. Fraisse, M.N.A.B.S., Deputy Manager-Engineer.
In order that readers can more readily appreciate why so much appears to have been achieved for so moderate a cost, viz., £6,500, some interesting items of improvisation with materials available are given.
The diving stage structures were fabricated from old A.R.P, shelter steel, 3 inches diameter struts. All handrails, ladder rails, surface water draw-off, divisional railings and barriers, were fashioned from A.R.P. decontamination systems, and where necessary, welded in situ. Site enclosure screens were constructed from steel corrugated sheets supported by tubular steel struts, ex-A.R.P. shelters.
Panels of 6 feet x 2 feet galvanised wire mesh were spot welded as fillers between the runs of barrier and divisional railings, and gaily painted in keeping with the general colour scheme, and cannot be recognised as ex-shelter, bunk mattresses. A war reserve stock of concrete sewer pipes was placed on end, filled with soil and now planted with flowers, bears little resemblance to their less fragrant counterparts. It will be seen from the foregoing that this improvisation of available material, together with the use of direct labour on site, contributed in no small way to keep the loan figure available for the construction of the pool proper.
Reference to the two illustrations will allow the reader to envisage the development of the present “Oasis” from its forerunner in 1946, and when he considers the development of this garden fringed stretch of water, flanked with gaily-coloured umbrellas over cafe tables, sunbathers laying out in multi-coloured deck-chairs, it will be difficult to realise that the roaring traffic of Shaftesbury Avenue, Covent Garden, High Holborn, and Oxford Street, all pass within but a few yards of its entrance doors.
The Baths Service Journal, March 1958
Large Holborn Development Scheme
Will Provide Office Block and Swimming Pool
An important new Holborn development scheme – which will add a ten-storey office block and a covered swimming pool to existing amenities—has been agreed by Holborn Borough Council.
he new scheme will be centred round the Oasis, London’s open-air bathing rendezvous at High Holborn.
There an investment company will build the office block on land leased from the Council. The basement and ground floor of the building will be used by the Council for a boiler house, laundry, dressing rooms and a cafeteria.
The new swimming pool at the rear of the block will have elevated sunbathing terraces. Folding doors
will enable it to be partially opened in summer and closed and heated in winter.
The present Oasis will remain unaltered, except for minor improvements, but a new children’s playing ground will be built in the south-east corner.
The scheme was devised by Mr. S. A. G. Cook. Borough Architect, who said : “ The new swimming pool will undoubtedly be a valuable asset, as it will provide all-the-year-round bathing facilities in the West End of London.
“ It will also relieve the strain on the Oasis, which is literally ‘ packed to the door ’ throughout the summer.
“ Naturally, too, the office block will be an excellent addition to the business facilities in the area and will give a new look to that part of the Borough.”
The plan has been approved by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and it will be completed within two and a half years of the acceptance of tenders.
Cost of the Council’s part of the development is estimated at £85,000, which will be paid by the development company, in consideration of which the Council will grant the company a 99 year’s lease
at a rental of £1,000 per annum. In addition, certain other costs, mainly for the purchase of land, will be borne by the Council, and the total is estimated to be £33,000
