A popular but small swimming hole that once existed on the rocks just east of the Newcastle Ocean Baths. Enthusiastic use of this bathing hole indicated the demand for ocean baths in nineteenth-century Newcastle. It was the smallest and first of the ocean baths created on the rock platform that now houses the Newcastle Ocean Baths and the Canoe Pool. No traces of this pool are now visible.
Location
Shortland Esplanade, Newcastle, NSW, 2300, Australia
Historical notes
Late 1800s
Novocastrians, especially ‘the youthful element’, bathed in a cavity cut into the rock platform as a footing for an 1870s bathing house. One young bather was nearly washed out to sea in 1876.
1950
Traces of wooden posts became visible after heavy weather removed some sand.
2004
There was no visible evidence of this pool.