Swimming was always a feature of the Burton Grammar School. In the very early days, the school used to have wooden huts next to the river Trent. They were situated on the Hay to the rear of where the Meadowside Leisure Centre is now situated and swimming classes were actually taken in the river. Use of the these continue for a while after the new, yellow-brick, indoor Swimming Baths on the Ox Hay, adjacent to the Trent Bridge, donated to the town by Richard and Robert Ratcliff in 1875.

The ‘new’ swimming baths (colour impression by me) were eventually used. Pupils had to walk to and fro from Bond Street. In Winshill Days, a double-decker bus used to take pupils down and they had to make their own way back to school up Bearwood Hill. Only the most affluent pupils paid the 3d to catch the bus although it was common practice for a while for groups of pupils to jump onto the open rear platform, clinging onto the pole, and jumping off as the top of the hill approached and before the bus could pick up any speed – until it announced it assembly that this practice should cease following complaint from the bus company.

The baths survived until the end of the Grammar School’s time and were eventually demolished in 1980 to be replaced by the nearby Meadowside Leisure Centre.