Marine Parade, Watsons Bay

This harbourside tidal enclosure is popular with all age groups. The enclosure has two sections.  The first provides a swimming area of approximately 50m x 45m and the second ‘outer pool’, provides an area of 50m x 14m.

The adjacent Teagardens provides shaded outdoor kiosk seating, views across to the Harbour, toilets and change room facilities for people using the baths.

Council is currently reviewing options for the refurbishment of the swimming enclosure, which aim to improve access to the water.

Access

Limited parking in Marine Parade

Facilities

• Year-round swimming enclosure
• Kiosk
• Toilets
• Change room facilities

Things to do

• Swimming
• Snorkelling

History

The first public swimming hole in Watsons Bay area was at Laing Point, located between Watsons Bay and Camp Cove, and was known as the 'Bogie Hole'. It was cut out of the rock by two Watsons Bay men, Jack Graham and Reg Norton around 1888 and proved a popular swimming spot. So popular that the pool was enlarged by the Council in 1895, and a dressing room built in 1898. Evidence of the bathing sheds no longer exists, however the excavated pool is still visible and is in use during the swimming season.

The succession of pools built along and around the Watsons Bay area demonstrates the popularity of harbour pools as recreational facilities for locals and tourists during the early years of the twentieth century. The popularity of the pastime was enhanced by the increased interest in swimming as part of a healthy lifestyle and as a recreational sport. The competitions of the modern Olympiad and the notoriety of swimmers such as Tony Fenech, Frank Jordan and Dawn Fraser, helped raise the profile of the sport.

The Watson Bay Baths are one of a number of harbour pools constructed in the late nineteenth and  twentieth century. The majority of the harbour pools identified in the National Trust of Australia (NSW)  Survey share a similar early history to the Watsons Bay pools, that is, that people had been swimming in pools that predate the enclosures that exist today. The nature of man made structures in contact with an exposed marine environment will always create maintenance issues, resulting in the need to repair or renew the structures over time. The Watsons Bay site provides evidence of the major construction or reconstruction phases in 1905, 1927, 1965 and 1975.

Swimming advice

• No life saving services are provided
• Beware of shallow water when diving

Dogs

Dogs are prohibited from the swimming enclosure

Prohibited activities

• Fishing (line and spear)
• Consumption of alcohol from within the fenced pool area