The oldest site on Sydney Harbour that has had continuous
bathing facilities in the City of Sydney is on Woolloomooloo
Bay. Known by various names in the past, it is today called
the Andrew (Boy) Charlton Pool after one of Sydney’s
early twentieth century swimming legends.
Images
Enclosure
This photo shows the Corporation Baths built by the City
fathers on the site of the Fig Tree Baths in 1858. The
fig trees that overhung a low rock platform had long made
this a secluded and popular bathing place, and since the
1820s there had been various other bathing structures
on the site. An element of decorum was attempted by the
segregation of the ladies from the men. In the foreground
is the ‘free pool’ which incorporated the
traditional rock platform used by bathers for probably
10,000 years. Behind this, in the background are the paying
baths. For your money you got change rooms and a diving
jetty. (City of Sydney Archives, SRC Photographic
Files)
Shoreline
This 1908 plan of Sydney’s favourite bathing place
shows some of the various structures and pools that had
come to clutter the place by 1908 when new baths were
opened on the site of the old Corporation Baths. The old
Fig Tree Baths remain, dwarfed by the new neighbour. These
baths were known as the Domain Baths or more often just
as ‘The Dom’. Their increased size reflected
the increasing interest in swimming, as distinct from
the age old habit of bathing. (City of
Sydney Archives, CRS 569/T622)
Edwardian
grandeur
The Dom Baths were built for serious swimming competitions.
The grandstand was designed to seat 1,700 spectators and
the pool was 330 feet long. Note the sign announcing ‘Gentlemen’s
Swimming Baths’ over the shore side entrance. A
few years earlier, new but far less grand ‘ladies
baths’ had been built nearby. In the early years
of the twentieth century the ladies lobbied hard until
they got access to all municipal baths.
(City of Sydney Archives, CRS 569/P470)
Grandstand
The Dom was opened in 1908. Its grandstand was a dominant
harbour feature on the horizon of the inner harbour until
the 1960s. (City of Sydney Archives, Vade
Mecum, 1916)
Local
Hero
It was at The Dom on 12th January 1924 that Andrew (Boy)
Charlton broke the world records in the 440 yards and
220 yards and the Australian record in the 880 yards -
all in the same day. A huge crowd cheered wildly as he
was rowed around the pool in a victory lap.
(City of Sydney Archives, SRC Photographic Files)
New
pool, old site
In 1968 the dilapidated Edwardian grandstand was removed
and The Dom replaced by a new Olympic pool, renamed the
Andrew (Boy) Charlton Pool. Because of water pollution
concerns, the new structure was no longer a tidal pool,
but a concrete structure suspended over the remnant of
various previous pools that had been progressively removed
from the site. (City of Sydney Archives,
SRC Photographic Files)
Gentlemen,
ladies and even toddlers
In 2002 the Andrew (Boy) Charlton Pool was reopened after
an upgrade and redesign of the failing 1968 structure.
This image is of the toddlers pool in the foreground,
with the 50 meter pool behind. In the background are the
huge crane located on the naval dock and Garden Island
in the distance. (Ross Honeysett / City
of Sydney)
Icon
with icons
When bathers first came to this place the view was not
quite the same. This photo has carefully aligned the ABC
Pool with Sydney’s iconic buildings, but it also
captures a feel for the original sandstone shoreline and
the native fig trees of ancient Woolloomooloo. (Ross
Honeysett / City of Sydney)
The
Archaeology of Bathing
This artwork by Robyn Bracken traces elements of former
baths at Woolloomooloo. A floating jetty and marine piles
mark tidal change, the stair cage and portal frame reflect
on the enclosed spaces associated with early bathing machines.
(City of Sydney Archives, CRS 904/C006)
