North Sydney Olympic Pool, Sydney

Fifty-metre outdoor pool beside Sydney Harbour, bounded by a brick wall of round arches decorated with painted scallop shells, birds and waves — The arcaded boundary wall of 1936 beside the fifty-metre pool: moulded scallop shells in the spandrels, a pair of birds over the taller central arches, and the clock. Luna Park stands beyond. Photo: *Olimpic Swimming pool Sydney* by Dinkum via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Milsons Point, North Sydney · New South Wales, Australia · public baths of 1936

North Sydney Olympic Pool — Inter-War Decoration Under the Harbour Bridge

A council swimming pool built in 1936 on the ground the Harbour Bridge workshops had occupied, with moulded scallop shells and parrots on its brick arcade and two Empire Games in its record.

At a glance

North Sydney Olympic Pool occupies a narrow shelf of land between the northern approach of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the water, next to the entrance of Luna Park. It opened on 4 April 1936 to a design by Rudder & Grout, in what the New South Wales heritage inventory calls the Inter-War Free Classical style, with stucco decoration that belongs to the Art Deco years. It is a heritage item of the North Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2013, item I0537, and is recorded on the State Heritage Inventory under database number 2180027. It held the swimming and diving of two Empire Games, in 1938 and 1958.

Key facts

Where: 4 Alfred Street South, Milsons Point, New South Wales 2061
Opened: 4 April 1936
Designer: Rudder & Grout
Style: Inter-War Free Classical, with Art Deco decorative detail
Protection: heritage item I0537, North Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2013, gazetted 2 August 2013; State Heritage Inventory database number 2180027. It is not on the State Heritage Register.
Owner: North Sydney Council
Sporting history: venue for the swimming and diving of the 1938 and 1958 Empire Games. The heritage inventory gives two figures for world records set here: 86 in its statement of significance and 82 in its historical notes.
Coordinates: -33.849260, 151.211312 · open in Google Maps

History

The site is a by-product of the Harbour Bridge. The areas set aside on the north-western side for the workshops and the fabrication of the steelwork were vacated by Dorman Long after the bridge opened in March 1932, and the land returned to government ownership. North Sydney Council acquired the site, put an Olympic pool on it, and opened it on 4 April 1936.

Its reputation was made almost at once. The 1938 British Empire Games brought the swimming and diving here, and the 1958 Games did so again. Through the 1950s and 1960s the pool was where Murray Rose, Lorraine Crapp, Dawn Fraser, Jon Henricks, John Devitt, Kevin Berry, the Konrads, Michael Wenden and Shane Gould swam, so intensively that the competition programme began to crowd out the public. The heritage inventory calls the place “an outstanding example of a 1930s Olympic Pool”, for its architectural style and detailing, its integration with the harbourside setting, and the 1930s sophistication of its facilities.

The twentieth century then edited it. The diving tower came down in 1970; the deep end was made shallower in 1980; the arches of the main elevation were infilled in 1981 with five-facet bay windows standing on cantilevered concrete sills; and in 1984 the architect Feiko Bouman introduced the bright colours that the stucco decoration now carries. Winter heating arrived in 1972 and an inflatable winter dome from 1981.

The complex closed at the end of February 2021 for a redevelopment that ran to five and a half years and to about 122 million Australian dollars, against an initial figure of roughly half that. It reopened on 7 August 2026, in its ninetieth year, with an indoor lap pool and therapy facilities added behind the old fabric. Original 1930s bricks were salvaged and re-laid where possible, and replacement bricks were hand-painted to match.

What you see

The fifty-metre pool lies lengthways beside the harbour. What carries the architecture is the arcaded brick boundary wall: a run of stilted semi-circular arches in textured brick of several colours, the central pair taller than the rest and rising into a rectangular panel above. The heritage record identifies the moulded stucco in that panel as parrots, and the keystones of the three flanking arches on either side as scallop shells, with fish, plant and water motifs worked into the spandrels between them. In the photograph the birds stand white against a band of blue-and-white stylised waves, the shells are white against pale blue, and curling forms in red and white fill the haunches of each arch; a round clock face is set into the brickwork beside the central bay. Those colours are not original: they were applied in 1984.

Behind the arcade the complex steps up the slope in brick, the grandstand over the amenities on one side and the offices and plant rooms on the other, with a terrace looking over the water. Several arches are glazed. The framing is what makes the photographs: the Harbour Bridge stands immediately to the west and the painted face of Luna Park’s entrance rises just beyond.

Practical information

This is a working municipal pool run by North Sydney Council, with an entry charge and normal opening hours.
The decorated arcade can be seen from the public walkway that runs between the pool and the bridge approach.
The site is compact; half an hour is enough for the arcade, the clock and the setting.
Press enquiries and image permissions go through the council’s media office rather than the pool operator.

Getting there

Milsons Point station is the first stop on the North Shore line after the Harbour Bridge, and the pool is a short walk down Alfred Street South. Ferries call at Milsons Point wharf beside Luna Park. On foot the pool sits at the northern end of the Harbour Bridge walkway from the city, about twenty minutes from Circular Quay.

Nearby

Luna Park Sydney, immediately north, whose entrance face is visible from the pool deck.
The northern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and its lookout, a few metres to the west.
Queen Victoria Building, across the bridge in the city centre.
Bradfield Park and the harbour foreshore walk under the bridge approach.

Sources

Heritage NSW, State Heritage Inventory, database number 2180027 — North Sydney Olympic Pool: address, designer, opening date, style, physical description of the arcade and its stucco, the 1970, 1980, 1981 and 1984 modifications, the swimmers, the statement of significance, and the listing as item I0537 of the North Sydney LEP 2013.
Time Out Sydney, “North Sydney Olympic Pool has officially reopened after a $122-million makeover”: reopening on Friday 7 August 2026, the cost, the new indoor and therapy pools, and the salvaged and hand-painted bricks.
Mosman Collective, “1,986 days later”: length of the closure, which places its start at the end of February 2021, and the reopening date.
North Sydney Council — owner and operator of the complex.
OpenStreetMap / Nominatim — position, returned as North Sydney Olympic Pool, 4, Alfred Street South, Milsons Point.

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North Sydney Olympic Pool, Sydney — Inter-War decoration under the Harbour Bridge