A long way to fall: a history of Victoria’s diving towers
Humans of all cultures have been leaping, jumping and diving off heights with gay abandon since records began.
It is a miracle we have survived as a species.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’ll know I’m working on a book about Glen Iris. The idea for this blog post sprang from examining the community significance of the Harold Holt Swim Centre’s diving tower. Since October is Victorian History Month, let's take a deep dive (pun intended) into the largely hidden and occasionally startling history of diving towers in Victoria.
What is ‘diving’?
The first thing you need to know is that we are talking about springboard or platform diving. It turns out ‘diving’ in historical terms is a very all-encompassing word. There's SCUBA diving, skin diving, pearl diving, free diving, sky diving, duck diving and race diving, to name a few.
I make this point because aside from state, national, Commonwealth Games and Olympic competition records, the practical and infrastructural side of Victoria’s diving history is sorely under-reported. Even Diving Australia’s “History of Diving” webpage barely mentions the evolution of the sport in Australia.
All this means I’ve tried to piece this together from what I can find in Trove and in various archives I can access, with some help from the State Library too. There will be gaps but hey, there’s more on the internet from this blog post than there was a week ago!
A quick ‘about diving’
According to Professor D. A. Armbruster’s 1948 book, Competitive Swimming & Diving, diving developed in Europe as a water-based outgrowth of outdoor aerial acrobatics and tumbling. He thought the first recorded diving competition took place in England in 1905.
The English were also the first to add diving to the Olympic schedule for the 1908 London Olympic Games, calling it “high diving and fancy diving”. There were two events for men: 3m springboard and 10m platform. These two heights became the sole configuration of an Olympic diving competition for many decades.
Despite the Brits being keen early adopters, the Germans dominated the springboard and the Swedes the 10m platform. Not wanting to miss out, Australia sent legendary poly-Olympian Snowy Baker as Australia’s first Olympic diver. He came 22nd.
Almost from the start, competitive diving was a rare, gender-neutral sport. Women competed in an exhibition at the 1908 Games, and then properly in the 10m platform at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics (Swedes won that one too). The first Australian woman to represent Australia in diving was Geelong-born Lily Beaurepaire. She came 8th in the Plain High Diving at the Antwerp Games in 1920 (the 1916 Games were cancelled because of WWI). She was also the first woman to compete in two sports at the same Olympics (swimming). But Lily was very much the exception.
The biggest barrier for international diving success for Australia was the lack of Olympic-level diving facilities, especially 10m platforms.
The first public diving pools
There's no doubt Australians love everything to do with the water. We harbour decades of enthusiasm for diving, leaping and jumping off purpose-built and ad hoc boards and platforms.
To accommodate this passion in Victoria, the 1920s boom in municipal pool building often included diving boards and sometimes a diving tower. I wrote more about these pools in my history of the Malvern Baths if you want to read further.
Whether a planned pool got a dive tower (or not) and how well it was built (or not) seems to be an arbitrary decision made by the Shire Engineer based on the land available and probably whether he had adventurous young children (or not). These early diving towers had no height specifications, no safety criteria, no pool depth guidance and no construction material consistency. They usually had varying heights; but nothing was standardised.
In short, up until Melbourne won the 1956 Olympic Games in 1949; everything about a dive tower depended entirely on the person responsible for constructing it.
The first diving towers
By the 20th century, records show many early municipal pools built into rivers, lakes and old quarries also included ad hoc diving towers. The high diving tower at Calembeen Park in Creswick is a good example. It first appeared in the 1910s as a wooden structure with a maximum height of 5m. It was then remodelled in 1929 and the current version (recently restored) dates from the 1960s.
The Footscray Swimming Club built one of the earliest diving towers in Melbourne on the Maribyrnong River. It was used for competitions and you can see from this picture on the left, that no-one even thought to move the boat out of the way. I can only hope somebody checked the river depth before they dived in.
Diving towers of varying heights sprung up all over Victoria during the 1930s, sometimes as homemade structures (old windmills were a favourite frame), other times as Council-directed Depression-era building and wellbeing projects.
In Melbourne, there were diving towers at the sea baths of West St Kilda, South Melbourne, Williamstown, Ivanhoe, Coburg and Werribee. Regionally, there was one at Bendigo, Echuca, Hamilton, Shepparton, Moe, Portland, Sale, Benalla, Emerald, Green Lake, Lake Yumbunga in Healesville, Lake Daylesford, Lake Bulleen Merri (Camperdown) and Mildura.
That is just from what I can find in Trove, there were probably more. Only the Mildura one goes on to survive today, albeit in a different and safer form.
Even when there was no constructed swimming pool, the locals’ need to leap from great heights was met in creative ways.
In the 1930s, an old quarry in Box Hill that had filled with water became known as the Surrey Dive. It was plenty deep enough to jump into from its high cliffs but the walls made it notoriously difficult to climb out. To stop people drowning, Box Hill Council built some facilities around it and it became a very popular spot for cooling off, with several diving boards poking into the water. Although Surrey Dive’s days as a swimming spot have long been over, it started Box Hill’s long association with local diving and contributed to the inclusion of diving boards at the pool built next to it in the 1970s.
The Princes Bridge along St Kilda Road was also a popular high diving spot. In a promotion for the Herald’s Learn to Swim Campaign in 1937, Irene Donnett, the Victorian women’s champion, gave diving exhibitions from a barge in the middle of the river. No-one officially dived off the Bridge itself that day but no doubt it happened.
Divers hoped that the 1934 building of the Olympic Pool on Batman Avenue would contain Olympic-level diving facilities but alas, they were abandoned due to the expense. Despite a plethora of diving towers and boards across Victoria, there were only two diving facilities suitable for the 3m springboard and the 10m platform competitions in the 1930s: the boards and platforms at the Brunswick Baths; and the boards/platforms at the Richmond Baths. I expect more research could reveal a rivalry between the two pools and their associated divers.
Ron Masters, one of Australia’s only diving Olympians, commented on the state of Australian diving in a think piece for the Kalgoorlie Miner in 1946.
“For some reason or other, high tower diving does not attract the same number of enthusiasts as springboard. Probably this may be because 33 ft (10 m) looks an awfully long way to fall.”
Divers needed towers with graduating levels to work up to the 10m but most of the ones around stopped short around 5m. Ron had a point; anyone who has stood on one knows how small the water looks from such a height.
That makes a nice segue into the fact that yes… people got hurt on diving towers and occasionally died, especially kids. One of the reasons I could list that number of diving towers across Victoria was because of accidents. Slipping on the stairs, cracked skulls on concrete, that kind of thing. But back then, hundreds of people drowned nowhere near a dive tower every year too.
Diving towers begin to disappear
The chlorination of most 1920s swimming pools gave them around a 40 year life span. Drought, dams, floods, river relocations, urban development all contributed to the disappearance of towers at rivers and lakes. Combine this with how early diving towers did not have a lot of structural longevity and many were demolished by the 1950s.
Safety also began to play a part. The shire engineer in Dandenong put it succinctly in 1947. “I was appalled to see a 3 metre diving board erected over 7ft 6in (2.2 m) of water,” he said. “It should not be used until adequate diving depth has been provided.”
The Brunswick and Richmond towers disappeared as did most of the regional towers. Public sentimentality saved a handful, such as the Calembeen Park tower in Creswick and the towers at Mildura. But others, such as the platforms at Kew Swimming Pool, disappeared in renovations undertaken with an eye to luring people away from their backyard swimming pools.
Diving may have been a flashy “look-at-me” competitive sport but it was also a fun way for children to overcome fear and take calculated risks. By the Melbourne Olympics, it was already being erased from public life.
Diving and the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne
The construction of a 10m platform at Canberra’s Olympic Pool was the first purpose-built in Australia. It was followed by the Olympic venue itself, the Swimming and Diving Stadium in Melbourne’s Olympic Park. To meet the requirements of an apprehensive International Olympic Committee, who were not convinced of the suitability of Melbourne for the Games, the pool needed to simultaneously meet IOC strict regulations and be architecturally spectacular.
The winning design came from five University of Melbourne graduates. It was, according to judge Robin Boyd, “an ingenious and original structure, which reduced the amount of steel required and produced the startling elimination of all column supports. It was the first building ever to be hung from its own roof.”
The Melbourne Olympics saw diving performed under a roof for the first time.
The dive pool measured 15.24 x 20 m and was 4.88 m deep in the centre. In lieu of any other specifications for dive pools, this dive pool guided the building of the handful of next generation diving towers in Melbourne. The Swimming and Diving Stadium also ushered in the centralisation of the sport of competitive diving (platform and springboard) around a much smaller number of venues.
Post-Olympic Diving Towers
The few dive towers built after the Olympics are situated in Melbourne’s wealthier eastern suburbs. They survive today because of heritage protection. You can no longer jump or dive from the top of any of them.
Camberwell Northern Pool Dive Tower (now at the Boroondara Sports Complex in Balwyn)
In the late 1950s, the City of Camberwell decided it was time to build new swimming facilities across its jurisdiction. However, the inclusion of a Diving Tower in the Council’s plan for Camberwell Northern Pool is something of a mystery. The Council’s minutes from the time do not refer to it separately at all. It was there on opening day in 1961. What is also curious is that a year later, the Council opened the Camberwell Southern Pool in Ashburton. This one did not have a diving tower; instead it had 1m and 3m springboards.
All I can really say is that the influence of the Olympics probably contributed to how Camberwell Council considered providing diving facilities as a standard inclusion in building swimming pools in the 1960s.
Oakleigh Dive Tower
The Oakleigh Municipal Pool opened in 1958 after a four-year grassroots fundraising effort from local kids. This was the brainchild of Merv McKay, a teacher at Oakleigh High School. He developed the Kids’ Campaign to fundraise for a swimming pool and put them into gangs named after their street name. The kids became so invested they competed against each other for who could raise the most money from collecting old papers and bottles for recycling. For every pound raised, the State Government offered a pound for pound subsidy.
Eventually, the Oakleigh kids raised £10,000 and were commended by Prime Minister Robert Menzies for the effort on opening day.
The 10m dive tower was always part of the original pool plan but, according to Oakleigh City Council, there were insufficient funds for it to be included in the initial build. For years, Oakleigh Council dragged its feet, rejecting eight different plans for the diving pool.
However, the (now mostly grown) children of Oakleigh did not give up. They solicited donations from local businesses and eventually, the diving tower was opened in March 1965 by the Oakleigh Council Mayor, Cr Ladner.
Harold Holt Dive Tower
In another frustrating turn of events (for me at least), the Malvern Council minutes from 1966 to 1969 – recording the decisions surrounding the development of the Harold Holt Memorial Swim Centre – are lost. I don’t know why a Dive Tower was included (the preceding Malvern Baths had only a 1m diving board) except that the Council's intention was always to create a ‘world-class’ facility.
And possibly to show off to Camberwell and Oakleigh Councils.
According to the opening day brochure from 1969 (picture on the left):
"The diving pool is 60ft (18.2m) in diameter and 16ft 6in deep (approx 5m). It is believed to be the only circular diving pool in the Southern Hemisphere. The circular form is the result of a highly efficient structural system which effectively lowered the construction cost of this element. It is equipped with a 10m diving tower, enabling dives from platforms at 10, 6 1/2, and 3m above the water level.
A separate 3m platform will have a high fixture board for competition diving. There is a further 3m tower with general purpose board and two 1m boards."
The diving tower quickly became the cornerstone of summer in Glen Iris. Although it hosted competitive diving competitions and training, for the next 30 years, the 10m platform was one of the only structures of any real height you were allowed to (legally) jump off around Melbourne. Doing so quickly became a rite of passage.
Teenagers dared each other to do tricks and bombies as they soaked the crowd of bodies packed around the pool’s edge. The pool parties of the 1980s and 90s were legendary; people came from all around to attend. There's photos but I don't own the copyright so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Then as pools often do, the party came to an end when the diving pool began to leak. The tower closed in 2003. It sat dormant for many years, the subject of much dispute among Stonnington Council. Ironically, the heritage overlay over the whole complex meant the dive pool and tower could not be demolished. Finally, it was refurbished and opened in 2022 with 1m and 3m diving boards.
Today, the diving tower is still there; stoically guarding a new generation of springboard divers, SCUBA divers and, believe it or not, underwater rugby players.
Where are the diving towers today?
In Melbourne, there are now only two 10m platforms: the Olympic standard tower at the Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre and the tower at Aquanation in Ringwood (currently closed for renovation).
The decline in the number of public dive facilities meant after the 1960s, a lot of competitive dive training moved into Melbourne’s private schools. Many retain their 1m and 3m springboards but only PLC Aquatic Centre has a 5m platform.
If I was to speculate, I think the lack of public diving facilities has created a misplaced perception that diving is dangerous and unsafe. When you combine its lack of visibility with an increasingly risk-adverse, over-protective and litigious society, diving is put in the same category as clowns: they used to be fun but now they just scare people.
In addition, municipal pools were always more a community service than a money spinner for Councils. These days they are not cheap to operate so pool managers needed to find ways to bring more people in. This meant that refurbishment efforts of the 2000s pivoted local swimming pools away from diving boards to play areas for pre-school age children (toddler pools and small water slides) and high, longer waterslides for older kids.
The only remaining diving facilities available to the public are:
Harold Holt Swim Centre’s 1m and 3m springboards
Aquarena in Doncaster kept its two 1m boards during its last renovation
Carnegie Swimming Pool’s two diving boards survived its renovations (although according to my son, you’re not allowed to do somersaults off them)
Aqualink in Box Hill maintains its historic connection to diving with 2 x 1m boards and a 3m
The Boroondara Sports Complex in Balwyn still opens its diving boards in summer and apparently you can still go off the tower at the 5m height
Pascoe Vale Swimming Pool kept a 1m diving board
Kardinia Aquatic Centre in Geelong has 1m and 3m diving boards
The historic platform in Calembeen Park in Creswick remains open if water depth allows
Mildura’s Waves retains its diving towers to 5 m.
Diving towers were once a ubiquitous part of childhood summers. They offered young people a chance to learn to be brave and resilient, overcome their fears while having fun outdoors with their friends. Today, Victoria does produce excellent divers but most of Australia’s Olympic-level competitive divers come from NSW or Qld.[1]
Perhaps the lack of facilities is still an issue a century later?
[1] With the notable exception of Olympic synchronised diver Anabelle Smith who dived with Ringwood Diving Club before attending the Victorian Institute of Sport and several Olympic Games.
Thanks for the time of: Matthew Koce from Stonnington, the ladies at the Oakleigh Historical Society, Prue Webster at Royal Life Saving Victoria, Vic State Library, the Public Records Office Vic for the Olympic photos, and the wonderful Trove for help with this article.
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