Photos, video and article by Matt Hillier
“A lot of British skaters that skate transition and bowls often dream of skating an actual pool.
We watch pool skating clips and look longingly at the pictures in magazines but 99% of pools in the UK are the rectangle kind with straight sides, nothing like the curved bottomed pools in California with blue tiles and intricate metal covered lights and chunky coping.
Filmed by Matt Hillier
Skaters:
Jean Bromfield
Brian Sullivan – Weston
Thiago Vida
However, last autumn last I spotted a pool pop up in my IG feed.
If this pool was skateable I was keen to document a session there as like I said skateble pools here are rarer than a Japanese steak.
I contacted the guy that posted the photos and we planned to assemble a small crew shoot a clip there, at that point he was unsure if it was actually rideable as it still had a few thousand litres of green water in it.
We made a plan to shoot but work got in the way on both sides and we postponed.
Autum hit and it rained, winter came and it snowed.
I totally forgot about the pool and assumed by Summer the land would be developed and the pool would be gone.
Fastforward one year and I get a message from Ozzie surfer and skater Jean Bromfield – He’s been given the address of the pool and apparently its been drained by some BMX’ers, it has a curved transition and appears to be rideable.
We arrange to meet and Jean brings co-first time pool skaters Brian Sullivan, Weston and Thiago Vidal.
15 mins of sweeping and drying and the first carves are going down.
This things pretty savage with a foot and a half of transition and 6+ feet of wall.
The boys get stuck in and start getting a feel for it.
Just as Jean goes over the light there’s a rustle in the bushes as an angry neighbour approaches ranting at us about private property, trespassing and calling the police so we leave quietly in the hope that we can sneak back another time for another session.
A week later we manage to get back for another quick session but only get a15 minutes shooting photos before getting told to leave again.
Weather or not it will be still be there when its dry enough to be worth bucketing out again is anyone’s guess but we are pretty stoked to find this pool in place where there are usually none.” – Matt Hillier
September, 2023
