If you want to swim in Bath in August 2026, your two real options are the 25m pool at Bath Sports & Leisure Centre (£8 a casual swim) and the 50m London 2012 legacy pool at the University of Bath (£8.50 a session). Cleveland Pools, the 1815 lido that should be the star of this piece, is closed and has been since January 2024, with no reopening date.
That second sentence needs saying early because Bath sets a trap for swimmers. This is a city world-famous for water, and almost none of it is water you're allowed to get into. The Roman Baths are a museum: the Great Bath sits there steaming and green and untreated, and putting so much as a hand in gets you a word from staff. Thermae Bath Spa has the thermal water and you can float in it, but it's a spa session, not swimming; nobody has ever done lengths of the rooftop pool. And the one place actually built for swimming in Bath's history, Cleveland Pools on the riverbank at Bathwick, reopened in 2023 to national headlines and then flooded four months later. Search results and old travel pieces still describe it as open. It isn't.
We checked every price and status in this guide in August 2026, against the operators' own pages.
Cleveland Pools: the honest status
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Cleveland Pools is Britain's oldest lido, a Georgian crescent of changing cottages around an open-air pool, built in 1815 on the River Avon just east of the city centre. After decades derelict, a Lottery-backed community restoration got it open for public swimming in September 2023. It lasted four months. The January 2024 floods wrecked the plant room and, as investigations later confirmed, damaged pipework beneath the main pool itself.
Since then the news has been a slow drip of setbacks, and we'd rather give you the plain sequence than false hope. In February 2026 the trust said the damage assessment was complete and reopening involved "a significant funding challenge". In April 2026 Fusion Lifestyle, the leisure operator that held the sub-lease, went into administration, which the trust says may actually help it regain full control of the site. The most recent update on clevelandpools.org.uk, dated 10 August 2026, confirms the pools remain closed, sets out no reopening date, and talks about planning, fundraising and "a more resilient operating model". A community consultation starts during Bath's Heritage Open Days in September 2026.
What that means for you: do not plan a trip around Cleveland Pools this year. If you care about it, the useful things are following the trust's updates, turning up to the September consultation if you're local, and donating. The site itself is worth knowing about for the walk anyway; the towpath route out past Bathwick is lovely. But it is not a swim.
Where you can actually swim
| Place | What it is | Price | Booking | Open when |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleveland Pools | 1815 open-air lido | n/a | n/a | Closed since Jan 2024, no reopening date |
| Bath Sports & Leisure Centre | 25m 6-lane public pool + leisure pool | £8 adult, £6.25 junior, £5.75 senior | Better website/app, or walk in | Daily, year-round |
| University of Bath 50m pool | Olympic-legacy training pool | £8.50 adult, £7.65 concession | Online, pay-as-you-swim | Public lane sessions around elite training |
| Thermae Bath Spa | Thermal spa, not a swimming pool | £44 weekday, £49 weekend (2 hrs) | Online, book ahead | Daily; minimum age 16 |
| Warleigh Weir | River Avon wild-swim spot | Free | None | Unmanaged private land; genuinely risky |
Bath Sports & Leisure Centre: the everyday answer
The city's actual public pool lives on North Parade Road, five minutes' walk from the abbey, and it's run by Better (the trading name of GLL, the leisure charity that operates it for the council). The main pool is 25 metres and six lanes, refurbished in the big overhaul a few years back, and there's a separate teaching pool plus a leisure pool with a flume and play features that quietly does more for families than half the attractions on the Bath with kids circuit.
A casual swim is £8 for adults, £6.25 for juniors (11 to 15) and £5.75 for over-65s, checked on Better's own price page in August 2026. Signing up as a free pay-as-you-go member drops the adult price to £6.80, which is worth the two minutes of form-filling if you'll swim more than once. Lockers take a 30p contactless payment, so bring a bank card, not a pound coin. Lane-swim and family sessions run to a timetable rather than all day, and the fun sessions book out in school holidays, so check the day's timetable before you walk down.
The 50m pool: Bath's genuinely underrated swim
Here's the one most visitors never hear about. The University of Bath's Sports Training Village, up the hill at Claverton Down, has a 50-metre London 2012 legacy pool, and the public can swim in it. Olympians train here. So, for £8.50 a go, can you.
Pay-as-you-swim is exactly that: no membership needed, book a session online, turn up. Adult sessions are £8.50 and concessions £7.65, per Team Bath's own swimming page, checked August 2026. The catch is access windows. This is a working elite-training pool, so public lane swimming fits around squads, and sessions release for booking in a rolling pattern a few days ahead (the university publishes the current timetable and booking-release times on teambath.com; they shift with the sporting calendar, so we won't print a grid that'll be wrong by October). The U1 bus runs from the city centre to campus every few minutes in term time. Swimming an uninterrupted 50-metre length in a pool that hosted Olympic training camps is, for the price of a cinema ticket, one of the best-value things you can do in Bath.
Thermae: lovely, but it's not swimming
Photo: thermaebathspa.com
We say this with affection, because the rooftop pool at dusk is one of Bath's great experiences: Thermae Bath Spa is bathing, not swimming. The two-hour Thermae Welcome session costs £44 on weekdays and £49 at weekends (August 2026 prices from Thermae's own site), includes towel and robe, and gets you the Minerva Bath, the wellness suite and that rooftop pool of 33-odd-degree thermal water. The minimum age is 16. Nobody does laps; the pools are warm, shallow-ish and full of people standing about happily. If what you want is the only legal way to get into Bath's actual spring water, this is it. If what you want is exercise, you'll leave frustrated and £44 lighter.
Warleigh Weir: the wild-swim reality check
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Ask locals where to swim outdoors and someone will say Warleigh Weir, the bend of the River Avon out past Bathampton where hundreds of people swim on hot days. We're not going to pretend it doesn't exist. We are going to tell you what it actually is: unmanaged private farmland whose owner tolerates access, with no lifeguards, no facilities, no parking, and warning signs the council and landowner have both put up. Weirs create recirculating undercurrents that don't show on the surface, the water quality is untested river water, and people have needed rescuing here. Bath's student union and the council both publish safety warnings about it. If you go anyway, and plenty do, go with company, stay well away from the weir structure itself, get in slowly rather than jumping, and walk or cycle in along the canal towpath because there is nowhere to put a car. It is a beauty spot with real risks, not a facility.
FAQs
Is Cleveland Pools open in 2026?
No. It closed in January 2024 after flooding damaged the plant room and pipework beneath the main pool, and the trust's most recent update (10 August 2026) confirms it remains shut with no reopening date. A community consultation on its future starts during Heritage Open Days in September 2026.
Can you swim in the Roman Baths?
No. The water is untreated and the site is a museum; swimming has been banned since the 1970s. The only way to bathe in Bath's thermal water is a spa session at Thermae Bath Spa, from £44 for two hours.
How much does swimming cost in Bath?
A casual adult swim at Bath Sports & Leisure Centre is £8 (£6.80 with free pay-as-you-go membership), juniors £6.25. The University of Bath's 50m pool is £8.50 an adult session, £7.65 concessions. Both checked August 2026.
Can the public use the University of Bath's 50m pool?
Yes. Public pay-as-you-swim sessions run around elite training, booked online through Team Bath with no membership required, at £8.50 for adults. Session times move with the sporting calendar, so check the live timetable on teambath.com before travelling.
Is it safe to swim at Warleigh Weir?
The site carries official warnings: it's unmanaged private land with no lifeguards, and the weir creates dangerous undercurrents. Many people do swim there in summer regardless. If you do, keep clear of the weir itself, don't swim alone, and arrive on foot or by bike along the towpath as there's no parking.
Which Bath pool is best for children?
Bath Sports & Leisure Centre, easily. Its leisure pool has a flume and play features, plus a proper teaching pool, and junior swims are £6.25. The university's 50m pool is lane swimming for confident swimmers; Thermae doesn't admit under-16s at all.