Peerless Pool

Peerless Pool was London’s first outdoor public swimming pool. It stood where Old Street meets City Road, on the site of an old pond fed by a spring. Before the 18th century the place was called Perilous Pond because many people drowned there while swimming. Fishermen and wildfowlers also used the pond. In 1743 William Kemp bought the land and turned it into a safer bathing spot. Kemp enclosed the pool with stone edges and added marble steps and a gravel bottom. He built a separate pond for fishing and renamed the whole site Peerless Pool. The grounds were planted with trees and in winter the pool became an ice rink. By the 1790s a small library and a bowling green had been added. The pool measured 170 feet long and 108 feet wide, with a depth of three to five feet. Visitors in the early 19th century found a lively scene. On summer evenings bathers dived, swam and played in the water while others stood hesitantly at the steps. Schoolboys from the Bluecoat charity arrived in groups each fine Thursday and Saturday, shedding clothes before plunging in. The writer William Hone watched their games and laughter echo across the pool. After it closed in 1850 the site was drained and built over, but the name Peerless Pool lives on in nearby streets.