HISTORY OF THE KING ALFRED SITE

The following text is extracted from the Council's supporting documents: Heritage Assessment, produced by the HCUK Group environmental consultancy (edited for length & clarity)

Proposals for a municipal swimming pool on a site overlooking the Esplanade at

Hove were first proposed in 1935 and eventually approved by Hove Council in

1937. Building work began in March 1938 and ... due to open to the public in 1940.  In September 1939, the new building was requisitioned by the Royal Navy for use as a training centre and named HMS King Alfred. The building reopened to the public as the King Alfred Leisure Centre in August 1946.

King Alfred Leisure Centre

3.6 As originally built, the complex - designed in a rather spartan Moderne style of flat-roofed brick ranges - comprised: a main saltwater swimming pool (110ft long by 42ft wide with a diving platform at the western end; the pool was capable of being floored over in the winter to serve as a dance/sports hall); a minor saltwater pool (75ft long by 30ft wide in the eastern wing); a restaurant in the western wing (with maple and sycamore panelling and French windows opening out onto a sun terrace overlooking the sea); a Jokari court; a deck tennis court; a rifle range; cricket nets; football and golf practice nets; private baths located in the north part of the building (comprising 24 second-class baths on the ground floor and 28 first-class on the first floor); and an underground car park with room for 450 cars which had been used as a dormitory during the war and included underground bowling greens and an exhibition space (known as the Sussex Rooms).

3.7 In 1960 a 10-pin bowling alley was added in the basement. This closed in 1989. In the 1980s it was found that the seawater baths and swimming pools were suffering from corrosion and were in a poor state of repair. Between 1980 and 1984 the original pools were converted into sports halls and a new pool was constructed in a large extension on the south (sea-facing) side of the building designed by Scott, Brownrigg and Turner of Guildford. In 1985 and 1986 water slides were added to the new pool. These were removed in 2009.