We walked to Parson's Pleasure to bathe. It was the first time I have been there this year: all was cool and green and lovely beyond anything. We had a glorious bathe and then lay on the grass talking of a hundred things till we got hot and had to bathe again.

During the pandemic summers of 2020 and 2021, when travel was limited by lockdown restrictions, there was a dramatic revival of river swimming in Oxford. The riverside became the city’s own holiday resort. In the wake of this trend, a handful of half-forgotten names began to resurface in Oxford’s memory: Tumbling Bay, Long Bridges, Parson’s Pleasure, Dame’s Delight…

In this lunchtime talk, the curator of our current temporary exhibition, Dive In! A History of River Swimming in Oxford, shared the history of the city’s bathing places. He described the social and material history of these sites, and reflected on the way they’d been imagined in poetry, artwork and fiction. We met champion swimmers and heroic lifeguards; traced the rise of swimming for women from the 1880s, mixed bathing in the 1910s, and the sunbathing craze of the Interwar years. Plus, we reflected on the troubles and dangers swimmers have faced, from criminalisation, injury and drowning, to diseases like Weil’s disease.

This talk was recorded at a live event on 7 June 2023, at the Museum of Oxford. Part of the Museum's lunchtime talks series. Check out our events here: https://museumofoxford.org/whats-on

Speaker: George Townsend

Music and editing: Simon Tarassenko

Welcome to the Museum (S1: E1)

MOX VoxBy Museum of Oxford Nov 03, 2021