The Spinning Wheel (image courtesy Harris Digital Productions)

The Spinning Wheel is a grade II listed building, and when first built in 1849, it was called the Italian Cottage, having a northern Italian and Swiss influence to its architecture. With its deep bracketed eaves and gabbles it is without doubt a lovely building an a rare example of what is known as a Swiss cottage stlyle.

Mr. Septimus Warner

The Italian Cottage was commissioned by, and became the home of Septimus Warner, the seventh son of John Warner. The Warner’s owned a London company that cast bells, so successful, that John Warner and Sons were appointed ‘Bell Founders to Queen Victoria by Royal Warrant’.

Septimus died at the age of 90 years in 1911, and “the Italian Cottage” changed its name and function when in the 1920s, it became a road-house known as the “Spinning Wheel” catering mainly for groups of cyclists from north London. The significance of the name to be found in the spinning of the cycle wheels and not as many think in weaving. It then again changed function in the late 1920s becoming a successful private sports club with an addition of an out door pool, members would even travel out from London to use its facilities, but its fortunes were reduced over the war years.

Hoddesdon Open Air Swimming Pool

In January 1945 Councillor Battson suggested to Hoddesdon Urban District Council, the town required a swimming pool, and that the Council should seriously think to “looking for a piece of land suitable for the purpose”. The HUDC did not have to look to far, and bought the ailing sports club with a ready made swimming pool in 1946. The pool was modernized by the District Engineer, but due to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health clamping down on all new installations of the kind, because of the shortage of building materials after the war, it did not open to the public until 1949.

Article by: Sarah Green

Hoddesdon Swimming Pool in the 1950s

Hoddesdon Pool - Now closed (image courtesy Harris Digital Productions)