Sea Swimming - Clevedon

Sea swimming has been woven into Clevedon’s identity since Victorian holiday-makers rolled wheeled bathing machines into the Bristol Channel and took the waters beside the newly opened pier. Local enthusiasm grew into organised endurance events - most famously the first Clevedon Long Swim across Salthouse Bay in 1928—and inspired the town to dam a section of foreshore the following year to create Clevedon Marine Lake, still one of the country’s largest tidal pools. Although the lake fell into neglect in the 1970s, a community-led restoration in the 2010s revived it as a year-round training ground for Channel aspirants and casual dippers alike. For the past decade I have been documenting this resilient band of swimmers, recording their predawn dips and midwinter plunges