Doggy Splash Day is back on Easter Saturday, 19th April. All well-behaved canine boys and girls are welcome to come and have a splash around before they get cruelly banned for the rest of the summer when the children move in. We're on at the same time as the Market at the Rookery opposite, where there's an Easter Egg Hunt happening too. Any and all donations to the paddling pool fund are much appreciated - it's all community-funded and community-operated, and there's plenty to be done to get our old pool into good shape for the summer. *Splash Day is dependent on all being ok with our water sample, which is currently being lab tested (that's laboratory really, not labrador). Check back later in the week for confirmation.

We are PLUG (the Pool Lovers' and Users' Group), which developed in summer 2024 with the aim of getting the water back in the pool and keeping it there for many summers to come. And we need you!

We're an entirely volunteer-run part of the Streatham Common Cooperative (SCCoop), which runs the Rookery Gardens and other bits of the common. It's SCCoop that officially operates the pool, as it has done since 2016, when Lambeth Council decided that it could no longer afford to run it (or some others in the borough, such as the similar traditional paddling pool at Ruskin Park). But SCCoop has also found itself unable to dedicate enough time to running the pool in recent years, because of its own financial and staffing pressures.

So to keep the pool open into what will be its 88th year in 2025 — and hopefully to keep it going strong to its centenary — the jobs of maintaining the pool, running it on a daily basis, and raising funds for both short-term costs and potential major repairs in the future, now lie with PLUG and the Streatham community.

We still get lots of help and support, especially from SCCoop, the council (which still owns the pool) and from the Friends of Streatham Common (FoSC, the charity dedicated to looking after the common). We really couldn't do it without them.

But we need you too! Don't think that maybe we don't, because we've already got enough people. We really haven't. We really do.

You can help us before the season: with gardening jobs, helping build stuff, making signs, cleaning the pool, and painting it. You can help by opening the pool in the mornings, closing it in the evenings; or by helping organise fundraising events, being there to staff them, finding raffle prizes, selling tickets on the gate. You could help us draw up plans for the longer term, raise funds from outside organisations, link us to local businesses who might want to support us.

It's a worthwhile cause. On several hot August afternoons last year there were 200 people and more at the pool at once, escaping the heat. Over the seven weeks that the pool was open, several thousands came through the gate (and sometimes it was nice and quiet, too...) It's a unique place, part of Streatham's heritage and important to its soul — let's make sure we keep the water in it!

The paddling pool clearly has a place in the hearts of people who grew up in Streatham - passers-by regularly stop to say how they remember being there as a child, sometimes several decades ago. But we don't have any pictures of it from before the days of Facebook and Google Reviews. Does anyone have any old photos — or just stories and memories — that they might able to share with us?

The existing concrete paddling pool dates back to 1938 - but there was a pool (and no doubt plenty of paddling) on the site long before that. This map of Streatham from 1877 shows the "top pond", circled, with its rounded shape flattened by the road on its north side — the same outline is still there today. The common's other paddling pool, at the bottom of the hill, made way for the children's playground in 2016.

This photo of the pond - taken from this archive of old pictures of Streatham - is from around 1905. It's the only one we have, from before the mid 2010s, so any pictures (or memories) from that century-long gap between the two would be wonderful. You can send us an email to the address at the bottom of the page - we'd love to hear from you!

The sun setting over the common and the pool on the last day of February, and of meteorological winter. Spring about to be sprung. The paddling season approaching. Do please donate, if you can. Or sign up to help us run the pool, if you can. Or just join our WhatsApp group, or follow us on Instagram or BlueSky, so we can keep you up to date (and nag you to donate and help later).

If you prefer your recreation to be less wet, the chess tables on the common offer a beautiful view on a sunny day, through your opponent's shattered defences and over the south London plains to Morden and maybe even beyond (are we really just writing this nonsense to fill up space and justify the use of this old photo?). To find the tables from the paddling pool, turn right and go just past the council bins, where you'll be pleasantly upwind of them, given a prevailing breeze. Pieces are available to borrow from the adjacent Rookery cafe, which you can see just over there, if you're looking in the right direction.