An abandoned outdoor swimming pool on the Moray Firth coast, Tarlair Swimming Pool or Lido is situated on the rocky foreshore, beneath 35-m / 115-foot cliffs, a mile (1.5 km) east of Macduff in N Aberdeenshire.
Opened in 1931, at a time when outdoor bathing had become very popular, this Art Deco construction was the designed by John C. Miller, the Macduff Burgh Surveyor and built in concrete by a local contractor. It comprises a tidal swimming pool, closest to the sea, a boating pool and a smaller paddling pool, surrounded by curved walkways, with associated changing rooms and a tea pavilion.
Use having declined, the pool was closed by its owners Banff and Buchan District Council in 1996. Ownership passed to Aberdeenshire Council and occasional use by a local model boat club continued for a time. The pool was Category-A listed in 2007 as one of only three surviving outdoor swimming complexes in Scotland (the others being the Gourock Outdoor Pool and the Stonehaven Open Air Pool). Although a rescue plan has been suggested and other uses explore, such as conversion to a lobster hatchery, the complex remains on the Buildings at Risk Register.
The pool was featured in the Channel 4 television series Britain's Abandoned Playgrounds (2017) and in Scotland from the Sky (2018) for the BBC. The curving concrete is popular with local skateboarders.
