One thing that a lot of people like to do on holiday is go to the pool and that’s a bit difficult at the moment. However, if you’re staycationing in Dorset or Wiltshire (the border between the two pretty much runs through the north of the town), salvation is at hand in the form of Shaftesbury Oasis – a heated outdoor pool in a very pretty town.
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury was founded by Alfred the Great as a defence against the Danes. He also founded Shaftesbury Abbey and put his daughter in charge. His grandson founded two royal mints here and his great-great-grandson founded a third. Edward the Martyr was buried here and King Canute died here – Shaftesbury having evidently failed in his purpose of keeping the Danes out. But in this day and age, what most people know Shaftesbury for is this advert:
Yes, it’s Dorset, not Yorkshire, and no, I didn’t know until last month that it was directed by Ridley Scott.
Shaftesbury in itself is worth a visit. It’s still a fairly traditional little country market town, with a famous hill and an ancient royal heritage. But I go there for Shaftesbury Oasis.
The pool was built around the 1850s and because it dates from the era of Victorian leisure, it’s 25 yards rather than today’s standard 25 metres, which means I have to calculate my distance at the end of my swim instead of as I go along. I believe it used to have a roof but twenty or thirty years ago it collapsed under heavy snowfall and clearly someone decided it was nicer to have an open air pool than to spend money replacing the roof. I’m very happy with that decision because that’s what allows it to be open at the moment.
How is it coping with the COVID?
I go for the adult lane sessions in the evenings. You book and pay over the phone and when you turn up, they check for your name on their spreadsheet. It says on the website “arrive up to ten minutes early for registration” but just turn up in time for the session and give your name as you go in. Then it’s a one way system through the viewing box – which is closed to viewers at the moment – and onto the poolside.
You’re asked to come with your swimming stuff under your clothes so you can just strip and put everything straight into the poolside lockers and then you go in your lane and swim for up to an hour. The busiest I’ve seen it so far is twelve, although someone last week said when they were there earlier in the week there had been fifteen. The guidance Oasis have been given is twelve people per lane but they think as it’s a smaller pool, maybe eight per lane would be better for them. That means a maximum, roughly, of 24 so it’s pretty quiet. But when I went last summer, there were sometimes only two or three of us in an evening session.
At the end, you can go into the changing rooms. They have boxes drawn on the floor for social distancing but the vast majority get changed again next to the lockers in the open air, including me.
(Step 1 – dry what I can and wrap a towel around my head. Step 2 – put on my flimsy beach dress. Step 3 – take off swimsuit under beach dress. Step 4 – put on swim shorts under beach dress. Step 5 – put on t-shirt over beach dress because it’s very flimsy. Step 6 – unwrap towel from hair and tie plaits together in a reef knot at back of head to stop hair dripping down t-shirt. These are all clothes that don’t mind getting damp.)
Swimming
I really like Shaftesbury Oasis. It had a facelift before it opened for last year’s summer season and the blue walls and sea creature murals have been replaced with white walls down the long sides, a yellow feature wall at the shallow end and a wall striped in its oasis colours at the deep end – pink, dark green and yellow. It’s not a combination I’d have picked myself but somehow it transforms it from a basic municipal pool to something a little bit quirky and a little bit fresh and a little bit Instagrammable, dare I say, if not for the fact that you can’t take photos at a public pool. It also replaced its bank of blue and green lockers with a bank of coral, yellow, green and grey ones, with the coral and grey ones being long lockers more suited to families. It all looks pretty good.
The pool is heated to 29°C which not only makes it one of the warmest pools within my reach but very pleasant to swim in on a drizzly August evening. It has steps down each shallow corner – no ladders here. That’s great during a general swim but if I find myself in the fast or slow lane at the moment, I have to be careful not to beach myself on them. I’m trying to persuade my mum to come for a swim – her knees are too weak to climb a ladder so most of our local indoors pools are impossible but the steps should be fine for her.
During family fun swims, Shaftesbury Oasis has an abundance of large floats, pastel-coloured rings, noodles and an entire basket of diving toys. The evening adult session sometimes amuses itself by fishing them out of the deep end after the kids have abandoned them in the day sessions. On Monday we must have rescued at least twenty weighted hoops, sticks and walruses (top tip: position yourself over it, dive down vertically and grab it between your feet instead of diving head first and grabbing it with your hands. Much easier and much better for your ears).
Obviously it’s most fun on sunny evenings, when you can pretend you’re on holiday somewhere more exotic than North Dorset but there’s a certain joy in swimming in warm water while cold rain falls on your head (and even more joy in swimming in hot water while it’s snowing!) that makes this pool a delight all summer long.