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King’s Meadow Swimming Baths were a fundamental stepping stone in “swimming for all”. Previously there was no suitable place for women to swim. The current pool finds its ancestry back in 1860 as a bathing area and then where the Corporation built the largest pool in the South of England (260x80ft). The current pool (120x45ft (37m)) opened in 1903 with much celebration was to be the first in the line of pools built in Reading. It had changing booths and showers and very high degree of architectural detail.

From the 50’s to the 70’s the pool offered a place where whole families could go for the day and whilst enjoying the sun, were able to dip in the clear water. The pool was sympathetically managed, cheap to use and served by a friendly attendant. Unlike the Arthur Hill Pool, King’s Meadow’s weakness was that it was not heated. Incidentally, one source says that the pool was later equipped with heating but it was never switched on. These old pools never benefited from re-cyclatory solar panel heating systems as are available today, because people were unaware of the techniques. As heated pools were introduced, the unheated ones were quickly scrapped. However, the current revival of lidos all around the country has been helped by a new approach to solar heating. Even the heating technology of 10 years ago has been improved on. However, the modern architecture does not seem to have become more durable or more aesthetic than was produced at the turn of the 19th century.