Clissold Leisure Centre

This is my 'home' pool - a super nice, large and light pool that's crowded only on the weekends. Weekday busiest times are from 9 to 11 AM or so, after that, until about 3.30 PM, there are very few people there. After-school swimming lessons are held in one of the lanes beginning around 3:30, which means there is one lane fewer for lap swimming, but it's still not very crowded. It's a big pool, nice width lanes (and a nice gym upstairs too). The reviewer above who complained about there being no spectator seating sound like s/he mistakenly swam in the training pool next door, and not in the main pool. The main pool has a huge spectator area and none of the issues described in that review. The two pool are next to each other, but each has its own dressing room so, if you've entered into the wrong dressing room, it's probably easy to end up in the smaller, training pool.

Very good for lane swimming…

Designed to catch the eye by people who knew little about swimming and swimming pools: No ledges to stand on at the ends of the racing pool; insufficient spectator seating; the lane ropes hang down from the poolside; poolside and changing room tiles are slippery-when-wet; and use of the changing room lockers forces one to block the narrow corridor leading to the pool, etc. In short, a stylish, glittering MESS!