Finchley Lido
Finchley Lido is a leisure complex at grid reference TQ266911, just east of the suburb of North Finchley in the London Borough of Barnet.
Currently there is a swimming pool and leisure centre, cinema, several food restaurants, bowling facilities and large number of car parking spaces. Finchley Lido is extremely popular with the local population of Finchley at weekends, as it is one of the only cinema complexes in this area of North London.
History
The Finchley Open Air Pool was designed by P T Harrison, from
The main heated pool measured 165 ft (50 m) × 80 ft, depth ft 3 ins to 10 ft (3.0 m), with two fountains. This pool contained at most 456,250 gallons (1,727,094 litres) and had a diving stage of a similar design to Barking Lido, containing a two-stage platform. Finchley Lido was the first swimming pool to introduce
.The whole site occupied 7 acres (28,000 m2), and there was a car park, with its own uniformed attendant (paid the equivalent of £3 per week in 1932). The main building also possessed a
on the north side of the site was demolished following large-scale flooding.On 11 July 1971, the Lido had 11,962 visitors, which remains the record highest attendance in one day for a UK lido.[3]
The original 1930s outdoor pool, which no longer exists, was enclosed by an elegant colonnade of Roman Doric columns, with fountains to either side and was used to host the men's preliminaries to the water polo competition for the 1948 Summer Olympics.[4]
The original site with its main pool and children's pool was closed in 1992.
Facilities
- Nando's
- McDonald's
- Swimming pool
- Holiday Inn
- Vue Cinema
- Pizza Hut
- Hollywood Bowl
- Cafe
- Ask Italian
References
- ^ Evening News - "Outrage Over Naked Swimming" Accessed: 4 Apr 08.
- ^ Oliver Merrington and Andy Hoines' Lidos in the London area no longer open Archived 2005-09-03 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "Extreme lidos - a Lidos FAQ". Merrington. Archived from the original on 2010-04-28. Retrieved 2009-12-01.
- ^ 1948 Summer Olympics official report. Archived July 16, 2011, at the Wayback Machine p. 49.