Rivacre Baths.

A Memory of Little Sutton.

For those who never saw (or may have forgotten), the photo shows the view you had after coming in through the main entrance. The large fountain can be seen in the foreground, and was enjoyed by many children as they ran around underneath the cascading waters. Just beyond was the shallow pool, which tapered from practically nothing at each end, to about 30 inches deep in the middle.
There was a short wall which seperated this from the main pool which was 14 feet deep at the far end, and above this was the diving platform consisting of the low and medium height springboards, plus the top fixed board.
On the left of the photo can be seen a long low building with windows in the roof, which was the women's changing room. There was a similar building on the right of the pool (out of sight), which was for the men, and if you look to the left of the diving platform, you can see the water tower which was used for Bowater's paper mill.

The nearest actual location of the baths was not Little Sutton, but the village of Overpool which was about half a mile away.
From the baths, Rivacre Road ended at the crossroads by Cemetery Gates, where you could turn right past Shaw's grocery shop to go to Little Sutton, (another half mile plus) go straight on through Overpool past Sharples newspaper shop, the CO-OP, the chemist, and Burgess's butchers shop towards Whitby, or turn left past the local cemetery, and on for about a mile coming to Frosts Flour Mills and the docks of Ellesmere Port.

I was born in Little Sutton at my mother's parents' house (Mr & Mrs T Baxter) on New Chester Road (nearly opposite the Methodist Church) in March 1942.
When my father was demobbed from the RAF in 1945, we moved to his parents house at the family home of "White Stacks", very near to the baths.

Next to the baths was a detached bungalow called "The Croft", then "Overpool Dairy", a small farm run at that time by Charlie Dodd, his wife Maude, and Charlie's sister Mrs Passent. It was here where they milked the cows every day, producing and bottling the milk for sale in the area.

"White Stacks" was in fact semi detached with the farm. The original structure was built as a coach house back in the early 1730s, and was used as a half way stop for the coach which ran between Chester and Birkenhead. Here they would change horses and carry on, or if it was too late, park the coach for the night and provide shelter for the passengers until the next morning. In the late 1800s the building was converted into a semi detached house, with the dairy farm starting up on one side, and my fathers parents living in the other when they were married in January 1900.

A bit further up the road next to "White Stacks" was the continuation of the farm in the shape of a similar building owned by Charlie Dodd's younger brother Norman. Norman and his wife May had the larger farm with 30 acres of land, taking care of the barns, cows, planting wheat, plus hay as fodder for the cows in the winter.

I knew the baths very well, as during the summer and being so close, we went there many times to swim, play, and generally cool off. My father Frank, was a very good swimmer, and played water polo for the local team. During his youth in the 1930s, they used to hold a 'family weekend' each summer at the baths, in which he was part of a comedy team. They entertained the crowd doing all kinds of things, and one of his particular stunts was to ride a bicycle off the top board of the diving platform, and jump off in mid air before diving into the water. The bicycle was tied to the top rail by a short length of rope, but this was not apparent until he just entered the water, so adding to the oohs, aahhs of the crowd as they initially thought that the bike would land on top of him.

We had some apple, pear, and plum trees in the garden, and during the later stages of the summer when the fruit became ripe, we opened up a stand at the house, and sold the fruit to the crowds at the weekends, as they made their way down Rivacre Road to and from the baths.
It was a very popular place during the summers of the 1950s - 1960s, especially when the weather was hot, but as stated in another article, when the indoor baths were built near the Civic Hall in Ellesmere Port (and so could be used year round), that was the end of the 'open air' Rivacre Baths, so they were regrettably closed.

My father continued his interest with the new baths, and was on the committee for the swim team which organized race meets locally, and also with Ellesmere Port's twin town of Reutlingen in Germany. They had swimming galas every few years with Reutlingen, taking it in turns to go there for about a week, then the German team would come to Ellesmere Port the following year to carry on the rivalry.

Due to failing health, my father retired from the swimming club in his later years, before passing away at home in "White Stacks" in 1997 aged 82.  

I have been living in the USA for the past 34 years, but my memory is still pretty good regarding the time spent in the Overpool/Little Sutton/Ellesmere Port area from the mid 1940s to the 1970s, so if anybody would like to contact me regarding this subject to add (or correct anything), please get in touch by leaving a comment in the box provided below.


David Copnall