Maroubra’s Mahon Pool At 90 – The Advocate Who Made It Happen

Mahon Pool is marking 90 years since Maroubra locals secured a memorial for the alderman who pushed for its construction during the Great Depression. Patrick Mahon died before the ocean pool opened, but his name has remained attached to the rock platform below Jack Vanny Reserve since Randwick Council accepted the memorial proposal in March 1936.

The pool was built in 1935 and 1936 around a naturally formed seaside rock pool at the northern end of Maroubra Beach. Mahon’s campaign linked safer swimming with paid work, asking the NSW Minister for Labour and Industry on 5 March 1935 to provide labour and materials for sea baths at northern Maroubra.

It would be genuine public infrastructure, sadly, with a personal cost. Mahon died in September 1935, before construction finished, and the Maroubra Bay Progress Association wrote to Council on 3 March 1936 asking that the bathing pool at the foot of Torrington Road be named Mahon Memorial Pool.

His son John Mahon recalled the relationship simply in Randwick City Council’s 2026 Scene magazine. “But I loved Pat!” he said.

That affection sits alongside a substantial civic record. Born in Gympie, Queensland, on 13 January 1892, Mahon became active in the Liquor Trades Union, the Australian Labor Party and campaigns supporting poor and unemployed residents, while advocating for beach improvements, shark nets and employment during a period of severe hardship.

Ocean-pool researcher Marie-Louise McDermott told ABC News that Depression-era pools served an economic purpose as well as a recreational one. “So the pools were helping people earn an income during the Depression years,” she said.

Mahon’s proposal reflected that wider public-works approach. Randwick Council identifies the pool and the concrete pontoon at Clovelly Cove as examples of coastal infrastructure built through unemployment-relief schemes, giving residents paid work while creating safer and more useful public places.

The result is unlike a conventional aquatic centre. Mahon has a sandy and rocky floor, direct seawater, natural edges and wave action over the seaward wall, placing it closer to the coastline than to a chlorinated lap pool.

That character has supported several generations of users. The Maroubra Seals Winter Swimming Club has held Sunday handicap races and social gatherings for decades, while the pool has also been used by the Sydney Swans and other athletes for training.

Architect, artist and designer Nicole Larkin has described NSW ocean pools as places of celebration, community and play. “Many were built during the Great Depression and all the pools featured here remain vital public amenities to this day,” she said.

Swimmer and swimming teacher Krissy Varga has pointed to a quieter problem in the wider ocean-pool network: the history is not always visible to visitors. “Some of them have a plaque that tells you a little bit about the history of how the rock pool was built and established but most of them haven’t,” she told ABC News.

Mahon Pool has received several major interventions because its exposed position makes deterioration unavoidable. The 2019 amenities redevelopment added toilets, showers, changing facilities and a clubhouse for the Maroubra Seals Winter Swim Club, while the project by Lahz Nimmo Architects later received a 2020 NSW Landscape Award.

Severe winter storms in 2020 sent a large boulder into the pool, requiring heavy machinery to break it up and remove it before access could be restored. In 2025, Council upgraded the entry stairs and balustrades and resurfaced the pool with a fibreglass lining.

The maintenance challenge is ongoing. Randwick Council says the pool is inspected regularly and generally cleaned weekly, usually on Wednesdays, but tides and weather can alter access and cleanliness at short notice.

There are no chemical cleaning products used at the ocean pool. Tidal wash can bring algae, seaweed and other material into the water, while seagrass cannot be removed freely because NSW legislation protects seagrasses and seaweeds on public water land and foreshores.

The National Trust listed Mahon Pool in 1979 for its historic, social and coastal significance. That listing is advisory rather than statutory, so the practical task remains balancing the pool’s Depression-era character with safer access, modern repairs, heritage controls and the effects of stronger coastal conditions.

For swimmers, the distinction matters. Mahon is free and open as an ocean pool, but it is unpatrolled, tidal and affected by swell, algae, seaweed and marine life, making it unsuitable for anyone treating it like a supervised aquatic facility.

Choose a calm day and check Randwick Council’s current pool information before travelling. Families and inexperienced swimmers should stay close together, avoid large swell and take extra care on the steep entry steps and rocky floor, where independent visitor accounts have warned about sea urchins and other marine hazards.

Parking around Marine Parade and Maroubra Beach can become difficult on warm weekends. Public transport is the more reliable choice, with route 396 running between Maroubra Beach and City Circular Quay, alongside eastern-suburbs services including 377X and 397X.

The practical bus destination is the Torrington Road and Marine Parade area, followed by a walk through the reserve and down steep steps to the pool. Local visitor information estimates the walk at about 150 metres, but passengers should check the Transport for NSW Trip Planner before travelling because stop locations and services can change.

There is no train station at Maroubra Beach. Visitors can make a day of the trip by combining a swim with Jack Vanny Reserve, Maroubra Beach, the coastal walk towards Coogee and a picnic or meal around Marine Parade, while bringing water, sun protection, a towel, pool shoes and warm clothing outside summer.

Mahon Pool’s anniversary belongs to a councillor who never saw the finished work, and to the local association that ensured his name stayed part of daily life. Every repair since 1936 has extended that public legacy while testing how much change a natural ocean pool can absorb.