Those of you that grew up in Exeter will have memories (some fond some not so!) of the swimming pool at the end of Denmark road. A large almost art deco looking building that was built in the late 1930's and opened in 1941 (it's amazing to think of things opening whilst the war was happening but I suppose it goes to show that some elements of normal life did carry on).
Originally called the Exeter Swimming Bath and later renamed The Pyramids afer a refit in the 1980's. It was for a long time central Exeters only big swimming pool and I learnt to swim there and often went with my friends after school for a mess about in the water followed by a portion of chips from the chip shop opposite!
I stopped going many years ago but from what I had heard it had become quite run down over the years and finally closed a few years ago. After that it stood for quite some time with the front boarded up with metal sheeting and looking very sorry for itself.
Bath Demolition were brought in to handle knocking the building down and thankfully they contacted me to see whether I would be interested in the large benches from the veiwing balconies that ran down either side of the pool.
I remembered the benches so was keen to reclaim them and also to keep them in the local area rather than let them go off to auction houses around the country (where I am sure they would fetch serious money due to the beautiful old timber and styling). I was also happy to go and have a look around the closed building just out of curiosity - one of the perks of my job!
It was definitely looking very sorry for itself inside and some of it had already been dismantled and piled up in the empty pool. Sadly there really wasn't anything other than the benches left in the building to reclaim and I guess that most of the nice old stuff went during the 80's refit.
We struck a deal on the benches and then I waited patiently for them to be ready. Due to their size and weight and the issues with access they had to wait until the roof had been taken off and a crane could be used to lower each one down from the balcony - no easy feat for sure!
Once down a hiab lorry collected the benches and brought them here - we then had to find space in the dry to display 32 benches that ranged from 2.5m up to a whopping 5m long!
Some were very badly damaged so we started cutting those down to make shorter 4ft benches (these were very popular and all sold out almost instantly), but we still have good stocks of the 2.5m benches plus lots of lovely left over timber too.
They are made from solid teak which is now a restricted timber so very hard to get hold of. It's lovely old wood and I am sure over time we will come up with a range of other uses for it from making small hook racks to larger pieces of furniture so that every part of the pews gets reused and has a second life.
Anyway, that is a brief history of the swimming pool benches that we have in showroom with a nice bit of local background!
It is great when we get these sorts of calls and it is always exciting to see what people have for us. It is also lovely to know that we are saving items that may otherwise be broken up and lost forever. Once with us they not only go on display and get cleaned up but find new homes too with some going to local houses (mostly people that have fond memories of the pools from the last 80 years) or to local businesses with two large benches being delivered to a local pub as I write this!