The Soane Museum Study Group is an open forum for scholars – both established and emerging – to present new research into an aspect of architectural history and/or Soane’s collection.
Christopher Woodward - Swimming Pools in 1918-38 Garden Design
This talk explores the development of the swimming pool as a designed feature within designed gardens and the landscapes in the period between 1919 and 1939, which Woodward argues is ‘The Golden Age’ of the swimming pool. Although historians have celebrated, rightly, the public pools of this period Woodward argues that this was a period of clever, playful innovation in which the pools and pool pavilions took centre stage in garden design, owing to factors from technological change in hygiene and swimming costumes to Hollywood glamour and shifts in gender attitudes. Until the First World War there were fewer than 20 private pools in Britain; by 1939, hundreds. What changed?
About the speaker
Christopher Woodward is Director of the Garden Museum but as Assistant Curator at Sir John Soane’s Museum in 1995 organised the inaugural Study Group sessions. In addition to being an architectural and garden historian, he has written about swimming pools for publications including Country Life, the FT, and Telegraph. His most recent sponsored swim on behalf of the Garden Museum was 100 kilometres in the Peloppenese in October 2024.
Event details
- Wednesday 3 December 2025, 18:00 - 19:30
- Drinks reception 18:00, talk begins at 18:30
- On arrival, please come to No. 14 Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The door will be staffed from 18:00
- Your email confirmation serves as your ticket - please note we do not issue physical tickets
Banner image: The pool at Kelvedon Hall, Essex, designed by William Kellner (1900–96) in 1937 for Henry Channon and his wife Lady Honor Guiness. Photograph: Christopher Woodward.