In 1927 the Hastings Observer spearheaded the campaign for an open air bathing pool on the site in West St Leonards overlooking the sea. Sidney Little (concrete Sid) was commissioned to design the iconic pool. Obsessed by use of concrete which he used throughout the town, bottle alley, the promenade, the shelters, he designed the 330ft x 90ft pool, with a ten meter high diving board, using 8000,000 gallons of water.  The cost was than £60,000. People were outraged in times of mass unemployment.

To great aplomb the Bathing Pool was opened on may 27 1933. The first week 33,000 visitors attended, encouraged by the Whitsun heatwave. People came from all over England to visit, raising the towns economy. The Bathing pool provided healthy amenities, squash courts, fencing, boxing, roller-skating, table tennis, ballroom dancing, bathing competitions and beauty pageants. The Olympic training camp used it for the English swimmers, however much to the chagrin of Sidney Little it was never actually used for the Olympics.

However disaster struck when war was declared in 1939. The bathing pool was closed to the public and used only for war defences. The chalets were sometimes used as air raid shelters. After the war the seaside once again began to thrive. Holiday camps popped up everywhere. However the upkeep of such a vast pool in a small town began to take its tole. By the 1960's people began to shun the English seaside for a warmer and more reliable holiday abroad. The pool went into decline. Hastings saw an opportunity to lease the pool to the private sector. In 1959 the Bathing Pool was handed over to Alderman Sid Withers (amidst rather disconcerting rumours) and converted to a holiday camp.

£20,000 was spent on refurbishing and the public were allowed to use the pool. However there was an air of seedy neglect, seaweed caused a problem at the bottom of the pool. Eventually the council refused to renew the lease. No doubt with the rise in property values HBC wanted their hands on a prime site for development. In 1986 the pool was closed. For awhile it was used for the storing diving equipment of the Amsterdam and later for the mixing of the cement for the sea defences. A sad, ironic epitaph for Sidney Little.

Half the site was sold to Southern Water. Eventually the bathing pool was demolished in 1992 leaving only the chalets and the two platforms east and west of the site. The chalets were demolished in 2006 causing outrage with he chalets holders leaving only the platforms. Real tears were shed including mine.