"What's the temperature at Tum?" was once a popular springtime topic of conversation in West Oxford. 'Tum' is the affectionate local name for Tumbling Bay, a peaceful spot at the north-east corner of Botley Park and behind the Twenty Pound Meadow allotments. It is situated on the Bullstake Stream, now a side-stream of the river Thames but part of the main river navigation channel around West Oxford in the 17th and 18th centuries until 1790 when a lock was built on the site of the modern Osney Lock and the present main route was established. A weir or lasher must have been built on the Bullstake Stream at that time and the water tumbling over it led to the name Tumbling Bay, first recorded in 1793/4.
From earliest times the rivers around Oxford have been used for informal recreation and Parsons' Pleasure, the once well-known bathing place on the Cherwell, probably dates back to the 15th century. Rivers were also of course a source of water, a place for washing yourself and your clothes and a means of carrying away your rubbish. The growing population of early 19th century Oxford added to the numbers of people using and abusing the Thames and Cherwell and respectable folk out for riverside walks took exception to the hordes of nude men and boys they saw along the way. Official river bathing places were seen as a means of clearing this general mischief from the towpaths and river banks. By providing a degree of supervision they also promised to reduce the number of bathing fatalities. Oxford City Council opened its first river bathing place on a side stream in St. Ebbe's in 1846 and Tumbling Bay was the second, opening in 1853.
Tumbling Bay bathing place was created while the building of Osney Town was in full swing but it was a city-wide facility not a local one. It was initially for males only and the only access was by ferry punt from the Thames towpath north of Four Streams. The original pool was below the lasher and bathers undressed on the grass behind a high hedge. Two or three narrow openings through the hedge led to the pool side, an arrangement which was criticised in 1859 because it led to people diving on to swimmers and made it difficult to ensure everyone's safety; the complainant also worried that naked males appearing through these openings were unveiled to Botley Road, to the inhabitants of Osney Town and even to users of the refreshment room at the railway station!
Until 1884, when the Local Board first negotiated the use of Long Bridges during the summer, Tumbling Bay was Oxford's only large river bathing place and its use was described as 'something wonderful' in 1876. In the main summer months, about 1,000 males were using it on weekdays and, on Sundays, there were generally 4-500 present at any one time between 6.30 a.m. and 10 p.m. The place was indeed so busy that the annual salary of the attendant, Max Davies, was increased from £10 to £15 so that he could employ someone to help him with the punting! The bad behaviour of some bathers added to his problems and, in July 1874, the so-called leader of the Tumbling Bay roughs was sent to prison for 21 days with hard labour for disorderly conduct and using bad language. In 1886, two people wrote to the local paper complaining about the disgraceful conduct of boys at Tumbling Bay. One wanted no swearing signs erected, the other requested that everyone should wear a 'bathing dress' to put a stop to the boys' vulgar comments and filthy conversation. Tum also proved attractive when officially closed and, in 1863, there were complaints about gambling and bathing there at improper hours.
Women and girls could not at first use Tumbling Bay or other river bathing places but 'An Oxford Lady Bather' wrote to the Oxford Chronicle in 1884 seeking better facilities and local politicians came under increasing pressure to meet these demands. After a debate in which Councillor Grubb commented, to general amusement, that, if any girl went to bathe there, 'he would like to see her', females were allowed to use Tumbling Bay for three hours each Friday evening from June 24th, 1892. A special dressing shed was provided and females were expected to wear 'bathing drawers' which they could borrow free of charge from the woman attendant employed for these sessions; once suitably dressed, the women bathers could enjoy their own roped-off space in the pool. At the end of the season, it was reported that nearly 5,000 females had flocked to Tum, an average of around 370 a day. Women were given longer hours in subsequent seasons and eventually, in 1913, a screened-off bathing place for women was formed above the lasher. In the 1920s, Miss Long, supervisor of the women's pool, rigorously enforced segregation of the sexes. Joan Bates remembers that "Some children came in carrying a baby and she wanted to know whether it was a boy or a girl and either they didn't know or they didn't tell her so she lifted up the child's clothes to find if it was a boy or a girl, found it was a boy and told them to take it out, they were not going to have it in a girl's bathing place."
Nude swimming for males remained general until 1932 when, after an entertaining debate, the City Council decided to make the wearing of costumes compulsory at all its bathing places. Segregation of the sexes became less important and, by the 1950s, Tum had slides and springboards at both ends and diving boards for boys and girls in the former men's pool. Local schoolchildren used Tum for swimming lessons from the early 20th century and older residents have memories of those first icy dips in May; reluctant learners practised their swimming strokes on boxes at the side of the pool. Pupils were generally allowed to walk across the allotments to Tumbling Bay bathing place, but the ferry punt was the only way in for other users until 1955 when a new entrance was made from Botley Road rec. More than 86,000 admissions were recorded between May and September 1947 and Tum continued to be a popular destination for many summer outings until increasing affluence, wider leisure opportunities and health scares steadily reduced the number of users. The bathing place was officially closed in 1990 and the wooden poolside buildings - attendants' huts, dressing sheds and toilets - have since been removed. The basic structure of the pools survives and the determined explorer can still trace the path to the ferry, the concrete platforms of the dressing sheds and even the base of a drinking fountain. Beside the lasher, wild flowers now occupy the concrete troughs which used to be planted out with summer annuals and the last of the timber footbridges crossing the pools became unusable in 2002, rendering most of the site inaccessible.
The future of Tumbling Bay
Tum is part of Botley Park and has happy memories for many local residents. It is a delightful backwater, a peaceful retreat from noise and traffic, and, in its current neglected state, it has become an unofficial nature reserve. Some years ago, a group of concerned local people set up the Friends of Tumbling Bay to protect the amenities of the place and encouraged the Environment Agency scheme to rebuild the decaying weirs through the former bathing place in 2000. The West Oxford Wildlife Group, affiliated to the West Oxford Community Association, is now carrying on the Friends' role and it is currently trying to raise funds to rebuild the footbridge and manage the site for its wildlife value. Our main objectives are to:
If you would like to help the Group over Tum – and perhaps get your hands dirty in a good cause – please contact the Wildlife Group via our website, or come to one of our committee meetings which are held on the third Thursday of each month at 8 p.m. in West Oxford Community Centre, Botley Road.
Malcolm Graham and The Changing Faces of West Oxford
Malcolm Graham is Head of Oxfordshire Studies with Oxfordshire County Council. He is also author of The Changing Faces of West Oxford, a fascinating and authoritative illustrated history of West Oxford which uses the memories of local people and other sources to look behind the mask of today's traffic jams and reveal the history of this fascinating area. His book recalls a time when boys played football on the Botley Road and women in Osney Town sat outside their homes and knitted on summer evenings; when children learned to swim at Tumbling Bay and the smell of Frank Cooper's Oxford Marmalade wafted through the streets. A time also when many people grew vegetables on local allotments to make ends meet and the children might sleep three to a bed in cold houses.
Malcom Graham's book – with many other Oxford local history books – is available from the bookshop in the foyer of the City Library.