Rachael Finlayson Beach Baths - Durban

An enormous 300-foot by 75-foot open-air swimming pool (later named after Rachel Finlayson) was opened in 1912.

In 1907, the South African Swimming Championships and Currie Cup water polo tournament were hosted by the Natal ASA for the first time, using the West Street Town Baths in Durban.

There were sell-out crowds of 350 people over the eight-day event, despite complaints about the shallow depth being unsuitable for water polo, and the length that had to be specially modified to make the pool 25 yards long. Although the original building has been demolished, the (empty) swimming pool still exists.

After the national Championships were again held in Durban in 1911, the Durban Corporation, as the municipality in Durban was then known, built the 100-yard-long Beach Bath on the beachfront in 1912, which was filled with saltwater. A temporary barrier was used to make a 55-yard competition pool.

Nationals were held at the Beach Bath on ten different occasions after that, culminating in the 1976 event where 20 national records were set. The salt water makes swimmers more buoyant than in fresh water, which helped produce the record haul of national records.

When the new indoor Olympic-size pool was built at King's Park in 2009, the Beach Baths fell into disrepair. It was upgraded in 2022 and used for the national Masters Swimming Championships in 2025.

Once iconic Durban beachfront pool now an eyesore

03 May 2017

A two-year upgrade to restore one of Durban’s iconic beachfront swimming pools to its former glory has ground to a halt and now it is just an eyesore.

The Rachel Finlayson pool - once a major beachfront attraction – now stands empty‚ surrounded by overgrown grass and shrubs. Stagnating water from recent rains is pooled at the bottom.

An upgrade worth more than R4-million began in 2015 and was‚ according to reports‚ supposed to be completed within a year.

Municipal spokesman Tozi Mthethwa said: “The work on the Rachel Finlayson swimming pool was halted in order to allow the City the appropriate time to procure a finishing contract within this financial year.”

Democratic Alliance councillor Peter Graham‚ who sits on the city’s security and emergency services sub-committee‚ described the state of public pool as “shocking”.

“When you have a budget allocated‚ it’s for the entire project. I want to know where are the pubic funds that have been spent on this...? It’s so far from finished. It hasn’t changed in about three years. There are two security guards sitting there. This is another example of complete wastage of ratepayer’s money‚” he said.

“It looks as if any attempt to restore this icon of the Durban beachfront where so many of us did 1000’s of lengths in the 70’s and 80’s has been abandoned. When grass and shrubbery can be seen growing through the building material it is plain for the world to see the city has lost interest.”

Graham said the city’s treatment of the public asset was “completely unacceptable”.