Portobello outdoor swimming pool

[Bridge hibs]

Anyone have memories of swimming in this legendary pool ? As kids we used it every weekend where we would traipse from Leith to this vastly impressive outdoor swimming arena

I think at the time it was 5p to enter and 2p for your locker in which you had your key in a rubber wrist band, we would normally pocket our bus fares to enable a purchase of a poke of hot chips to help us thaw out. I was never brave enough to tackle the raft or wave machine which was impressive to say the least, preferring to splash about knee deep at the shallow end for safety sake

The Pool fell into a long and controversial decline, with the closure of the power station in 1978 removing what little heat there was for the water. The 1979 season turned out to be the last and demolition was finally approved in 1988

At one point ideas were being floated around with regards Meadowbank Thistle changing use to a football stadium as infrastructure was very much in place but plans never even got to the drawing board stage

The pool, which opened in 1936, was the largest outdoor facility of its kind in Europe. The Pool was enormous; 330 feet long by 150 feet wide – the equivalent of two Olympic sized pools – and varied in depth from one foot to six feet two inches at the deep end. Six thousand spectators could be accommodated, with 2,000 seats available under a cantilevered stand