The cooling waters that are now cherished London landmarks were created more than 300 years ago when a brook that was one of the sources of the River Fleet was dammed for reservoirs.
The Hampstead Water Company wanted to exploit the “great and plentiful springs at Hampstead Heath” to meet London’s growing water demand and by the late 18th century the iron‑rich waters had turned the north London village into a spa where folk came to take the waters.
Swimmers flock to the mixed bathing pond on Hampstead Heath during a heatwave. (Image: Yui Mok/PA)
Locals and visitors alike would also dive into the ponds. The poet and artist William Blake, who stayed at Wylde’s Farm on Hampstead Heath, described in his epic poem Jerusalem of “the ponds where boys to bathe delight”.
The stretch of water now known as the mixed pond was the first of the Heath ponds to be used for regular bathing in the 1800s with swimmers leaving their clothes on the bank and entering the water from the natural edges.
The Men’s bathing pond on Hampstead Heath. (Image: Dieter Perry)
By the late Victorian period, concerns about decency and safety led to pressure to separate male and female bathers, and in 1893 the men’s pond opened as a formal public facility with a bathing shed, diving stage and platform.
Its 15‑foot board was the first purpose‑built diving stage in the country and displays became a popular feature.
Facilities improved, lifesaving and swimming clubs were formed and the pond even stayed open during both world wars, although the tall diving tower was dismantled in the 1970s following an accident.
After the opening of the men’s pond, women had to wait another 33 years to get their own swimming pond.
Socially distanced swimming at the Kenwood Ladies Pond during Covid. (Image: Sarah Saunders)
The Kenwood Ladies’ Pond opened in 1926 – it was still on Hampstead Heath but close to the estate which was bought by the first Earl of Iveagh Edward Cecil Guinness in 1925 and bequeathed to the nation two years later.
The pond was a designated, screened space where women could swim and sunbathe out of view of men and quickly became popular with residents, day trippers and generations of artists and writers who swam year‑round in the cold spring‑fed water.
In 1931 British Pathé filmed at the pond and the silent short film Winter Nymphs was shot when the air outside was one degree – with the women seen warming up after their swim with a hot drink and a game of leapfrog.
The Ladies’ Pond was legally recognised as a designated bathing facility with lifeguards, changing huts and space for sunbathing.
Like the Men’s Pond it stayed open during the Second World War although the Mixed Pond was used as an emergency water supply for the fire brigade during the Blitz.
By the 1980s the Men’s Pond become a recognised gathering place for gay men with cruising and a tradition of naked sunbathing that many hold dear as part of LGBTQ+ social history.
The ponds of Hampstead Heath were created in the 18th century when a brook was damned to create a reservoir of drinking water for London. (Image: Adam King)
The City of London Corporation took over running the Heath in 1989 and although it tried to close the ponds in the early noughties as costly and risky to maintain, a High Court challenge was won by the swimmers – although the argument opened the door to admission fees.
Further fee rises and, after 2020, compulsory payment and timed booking systems provoked strong opposition from the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond Association, who argued such changes undermined the spontaneity and accessibility that had defined the pond’s character for decades.
The Men’s Pond continues to be a lifeguarded, year‑round as a “natural bathing pond” for competent male swimmers.
And the Mixed Pond is open to the public in the summer months but you must be a club member to swim in winter.
In recent years the Kenwood Ladies’ Pond has become the focus of debates over gender, inclusion and the meaning of women‑only spaces.
In 2017 CoL confirmed that transgender women could use the women’s pool under its interpretation of the Equality Act 2010.
After the 2024 Supreme Court ruling on the legal meaning of “man” and “woman”, it opened a public consultation on future access arrangements, receiving thousands of responses.
A large majority favoured allowing trans people to use the pond aligned with their gender identity, and the existing policy was retained.
The Ladies’ Pond has been celebrated in literature, film and memoir – including the 2019 anthology At the Pond – as a place of refuge, community and bodily freedom for generations of women and a new book: Brave and Bold: 100 years of the Ladies’ Pond on Hampstead Heath (in all weathers) by Nell Frizzell has just come out, published by Harper Collins.
