19 Best Swimming Pools In Kent

A category slip in our records rather than a pool with an unusual name. Folkestone Ski Centre is a slope, and it is flagged outdoor, which is the giveaway. It is a decent day out on its own terms for the right child, but it will not get anybody swimming. Take Kent's nineteen swimming entries as eighteen once you have set it aside.

Four carry an outdoor flag, and Tonbridge Swimming Pool is the clearest example, which makes it a different sort of trip from a leisure centre — better on a hot day, useless on a cold one, and much more memorable for a child either way. The other fifteen sit indoors and behave the way you expect a town pool to behave, whatever the weather is doing outside.

Start with geography and cut the list to the three or four you would actually drive to, because a pool is a habit rather than an outing and the nearest one usually wins in the end. Then look at what each is attached to: a leisure centre with other activities suits a family with children at different stages, while a standalone town pool tends to be simpler, quieter and quicker to get in and out of.

Less than you would like. The Kent pools cluster in a narrow band near the top of four, and the gap between the best and the middle is small enough that it should not override convenience. What ratings do usefully separate is the bottom of a list from the rest. If two pools are equally easy to reach, take the higher-rated one; if they are not, take the nearer one.