Latest news with #BathsHall
The Sun
23-04-2025
- Health
- The Sun
Historical swimming baths forced to close will reopen next year after £6.5million revamp
THE reopening of Swindon's Health Hydro has been pushed back to early 2026. During the £6.5million renovation, unexpected discoveries have meant the pool, that's the longest in Wiltshire, has been forced to stay closed for longer than expected. 4 4 The town's historic 33-metre hydro pool closed in 2023 for a costly revamp that was supposed to only take 18 months. The work began in April 2023 to update the Grade-II listed Health Hydro on Milton Road in Swindon. The pool opened more than 130 years ago and its side was built by Great Western Railway workers who gave some of their wages to fund the project. The washing baths were built in 1891, with the Turkish and Russian baths being added in 1904. The restoration project has been extended due to unforeseen challenges discovered after the building closed. These included the need to redesign parts of the structure while preserving its historical structure as well as the removal of asbestos. The first phase of the restoration is expected to be completed by the end of 2025. This includes making the site safe, and refurbishing the former Washing Baths Hall and changing rooms. Once complete it will create an accessible route through to the restored changing rooms and the main pool hall. Barnaby Rich, who works for Greenwich Leisure Limited, the operator of the site, told the BBC in 2023: "It's a huge project." This Incredible Pool Is Inside A Former Church 4 He added: "It's an incredible amount of money but it doesn't go that far these days. We're looking at closer to £20m to re-build a leisure centre." Other phases of regeneration could see improvements made to the Turkish baths, small pool hall, dispensary and dry-side areas. That's not the only historic pool in the UK of note. There's a stunning pool in the London borough of Redbridge that was built on the site of former psychiatric hospital. Claybury Hospital operated between 1893 and 1997 when it closed due to a dwindling number of patients after the introduction of the NHS. After that, the estate, called Repton Park, was converted into an estate of luxury flats, parks and of course, a health club. Virgin Active own the gym on the red brick estate and inside, you'll find a huge pool in what used to be the on-site chapel. Inside is a 24-metre pool as well as showers, hot tub and steam room. The old confessional box has been converted into a sauna. Apart from the fact it's been filled with water, the church remains the same with huge archways, stained glass windows and vaulted ceiling. Here's a Grecian swimming pool that's one of the grandest in the UK and it's 10-minutes away from Buckingham Palace. And the little-known rooftop pool in the UK you can only visit twice a month – but has amazing views. 4
The Guardian
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Johnny Green obituary
In footage of the punk band the Clash as they pile onstage at Rock Against Racism in Victoria Park, east London, in 1978, there's a glimpse of the road manager Johnny Green and his two young daughters Acorn and Goldy. In his 1997 book A Riot of Our Own: Night and Day With the Clash, John wrote: 'I felt quite proud that my kids had come to see Daddy at work. A guy in a silk tour jacket [a roadie from another band] said, 'Who let these kids up here?' I said, 'I did. So what?'' Three decades on, at the first Latitude festival in 2006, John reacquainted himself with an old compadre from punk days, John Cooper Clarke, and before long had become the poet's 'gentleman travelling companion'. He remained so for 15 years, reprising his Clash role of cutting through the bullshit and ensuring smooth passage to places such as the Baths Hall, Scunthorpe. But John, who has died aged 75, was not just a road man. As often as not he would be up on stage himself, riffing with Cooper Clarke or reading from A Riot of Our Own (written with Garry Barker), his inside track on days with the Clash. Born John Broad in Chatham, Kent, to Margery (nee Tall) and Jack Broad, both primary school teachers, John spent his early years on the Twydall estate in Gillingham then went to Gillingham grammar school. On leaving he sold Gandalf's Garden and International Times in Medway towns, then worked in wholefoods collectives in Yorkshire and Snowdonia with Richenda Watterson, the mother of Acorn and Goldy, whom he had married in 1969. He graduated from Lancaster University with a degree in Arabic and Islamic studies in 1977, but, his marriage dissolved, a chance conversation led to him travelling to Belfast to help out with the Clash tour. He stayed with the band – who supplied the Johnny Green moniker – for two years. He was known for letting waifs and strays into Clash gigs without paying, but on tour in the US in 1980 he felt the pure moment of punk had evaporated, and left. John moved to Lubbock, Texas, worked with the country musician Joe Ely, and married a designer, Lindy Poltock, with whom he had two sons, Earl and Dirk. Both she and Dirk died of pneumococcal meningitis in 1983. Rudderless for a while, John ended up back in Kent. At teacher-training college in Canterbury in 1985 he met Janette Border. The pair married and settled in Whitstable in 1991 with Earl; two daughters, Polly and Ruby, followed. John taught RE in north Kent secondary schools before taking the same gonzo modus operandi employed in Riot to cycling, for Push Yourself Just a Little Bit More (2005), his irreverent backstage account of the Tour de France. I had the pleasure of editing John's books. He was a brilliant raconteur: thoughtful, astute and hilarious; everything – from Rimbaud 'the original punk', Eddy Merckx's perfect hair, the life and times of Gillingham centre-half Barry Ashby, life in Yemen – was processed through the Broad/Green filter, to emerge in needle-sharp prose on the page, the stage or in everyday conversation. John is survived by Janette, his children, and four grandchildren.
