Reading Room
Saltdean Lido
The Reading Room at Saltdean Lido
Open when the pool is closed
The Reading Room at Saltdean Lido stays open when the pool is closed, and so do the sauna, gym, library, ballroom and all the terraces. Coffee, lunch and dinner carry on as usual.
Nine miles east along the coast there is a long white building from 1938, with a heated pool in front of it and the sea behind. Grade II* listed, art deco, and saved by a community that campaigned for years to get it back.
We took on the food at the end of April. Coffee from the morning, lunch by the pool, dinner at the end of the week, and the whole of the art deco ballroom when somebody is getting married.
Same family, same Skylark coffee, the same thinking about where things come from. A different sort of day, though: you come down the hill, the building opens up, the pool is there, and a tunnel runs under the road to the beach.
It is the same offering in a far bigger building, which means the weddings can be bigger too. Two floors and two large kitchens.
Terraces at ground level, and the upper terraces, the wings, looking out across the pool to the cliffs. Glamorous in June, and still glamorous in February.
Brighton is the room you come back to. Saltdean is the one you make a day of.