VIRTUAL TOUR Part Eight: Hydrotherapy Pool

Beyond this window lies one of the more obscure CRCMH attractions. It's only a small room, but it exists thanks to a fundraising drive headed by Nancy Astor all those years ago.

Yes folks - Welcome to the pool room. You won't be shooting any pool in here though - this is most definately a hydrotherapy pool. It's great for relaxing and relieving tension, and excercising those muscles. Precisely the reason it was constructed in fact. You can see a few fellow explorers taking a well deserved rest here.

But if you feel slightly more energetic, you can follow the example set by "Launchpad" (not something I'd normally advise) and have a bit of a surf on the clever built-in surfboard. Alright, so it's not supposed to be a surfboard, but it moves about a bit like one when you balance on it. Why not have a go for yourself?

You may have already noticed that this pool is lacking its fundamental ingredient - water. If you were really bored and wanted a bit of a swim, you might perhaps hook a hose up and fill it, but a) this would not only be impractical, but would take ages, and b) the finished result would be absolutely disgusting. There's all sorts of rubbish floating around the base and you wouldn't get in there for a paddle if you were paid.

You can however go for a stroll inside the pool now that it's empty. Sure, there's not exactly much to do in there, but it beats...okay, so I can't think of anything less enticing than walking around inside an empty hydro pool. I suppose you could sit down in that well positioned chair though if it took your fancy.

Yes, it's time to leave - so, where to next? Well, outside would be a start. And there's a door on the Eastern side of the pool room that will take us there. Et Voila! With the pool room on our right, we're now facing South with the main building and Grand Corridor infront of us. What we're going to do though is to hang a left just here and enter our next part of the tour.

And this next part is quite special, because it effectively no longer exists. For the first time on the tour, you're about to experience a building which has very much caved in on itself now (from natural structural defects thankfully, rather than human intervention), so brace yourself for a unique slice of the past.