Portishead Lido

Portishead Lido is a seawater tidal pool on the Bristol Channel shore of Somerset, where the world's second largest tidal range, the Severn estuary's extraordinary fourteen-metre difference between high and low water, fills and drains the pool in a rhythm that connects the swimmer directly to the most powerful tidal force in Europe. The lido, originally opened in the 1920s and restored after decades of closure, is filled by the iron-rich, iodine-bearing waters of the inner Bristol Channel at each high tide, its water temperature and composition reflecting the unique estuarine mixing of the Severn where the tidal bore runs upstream for twenty kilometres after extreme spring tides. The dramatic setting of the pool against the channel views towards Wales, the Quantock Hills behind, and the industrial heritage of the Bristol docks visible upstream gives Portishead Lido a sense of place inseparable from the turbulent, mineral-laden waters that have powered the trade, industry, and natural wonder of the Severn estuary for millennia.