I spotted these photos and writing about Norton Swimming Baths on Malton and Norton Memories Facebook page, posted by Dave Preston in March 2025, pulled together from earlier contributions by Janet Stead, Jim Rooney and others. An unlikely siting for an open air swimming bath, in the midst of factories and tanning yards, with a gasometer and brewery chimney in the background.

Dave Preston writes:

A little shallow bend in the River Derwent here was used by St Paulinus, a Roman missionary monk, way back in 627 AD to baptise Christian converts. There wasn’t a real pool here then, but it was lovely and a popular spot so they built a church on the river bank, back in Medieval times. The original Church of Saint Nicholas was replaced by a later version in 1816, a fine old stone building that could accommodate 350 worshippers. This church also outlived its use and was demolished in 1901. The final service was held on 24th June 1894. And that’s why it’s called Church Street. (There’s also St Nicholas Street which appeared in the late 1800s, a few hundred yards away.)

In 1845, the York and North Midland Railway was creating a line to run from York to Scarborough and room was tight on the far bank so they built a wooden viaduct to carry the tracks over the loop in the river. You can see the viaduct on the 1854 map of the area, when the river looped around a small island and flowed right behind the church. By the late 1800s this area had been filled in and the viaduct removed but the railway line (now the NER) still ran right next to the church property.

Local youth liked to mess about in the Derwent, but unfortunately a lot of them weren’t good swimmers and some drowned. A doctor suggested that if someone built a swimming pool in the church’s old crypt it would be a much safer place for kids to swim, or learn to swim. So an outdoor pool was built, but kids still swam in the Derwent as they always did.

My mother often told us that as a young girl living on Town Street, Old Malton during WWII, she’d watch foreign soldiers from the nearby POW camp (Eden Camp), march down to Norton baths for their weekly rinse off.

I remember the outdoor pool being very basic, and very cold. The warmest thing about it was the bright cubicle door colours. Whenever a steam train rumbled by we’d grab the excuse to get out of the water and stand shivering to look over the wall and watch it go by.

Years later (1967) the pool was virtually demolished then renovated, covered, and praise be – heated! It was ready to open in 1967. Once changed, there was a footbath you had to paddle through, not to prevent the spread of foot and mouth, as some farm lads would have you believe, but to stop you getting verrucas (or verrucae vulgaris which are just common or garden warts infected with human papillomavirus).

After swimming you could indulge yourself with a cardboard cup of instant oxtail soup from the vending machine. It was absolutely awful, but we loved it. I suppose it was there, under the watchful eye of the late St Nicholas, that I learned how not to drown. It’s known today as the Derwent Swim and Fitness Centre.