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Current Use: Ocean baths.
Condition: Good.

Late 1920s
To create a training pool, Palm Beach surf club members deepened the existing  pool on the rock shelf at the southern end of the beach and erected a timber post fence. Other beachgoers also enjoyed the pool. 

1930s
Unemployed labour built a wall near the pool.

1946
Forbes Carlisle, Chief Coach of the New South Wales Amateur Swimming Association and a physiology lecturer at the University of Sydney, persuaded the Palm Beach surf club to sponsor the formation of the Palm Beach Amateur Swimming Club. This club aimed to 'help young Australians swimmers attain Olympic swimming standards' by concentrating on boys aged 10 to 20 with good swimming ability. While the Palm Beach Swimming Club trained mainly at the North Sydney Olympic Pool, it had a  'summer camp' lasting three weeks at Palm Beach.

Warringah Shire renovated the ocean pool in 1946.

1948
Much of the Australian swim team's success at the 1948 Olympics was attributed to Carlisle and the Palm Beach Amateur Swimming Club.

The beach's salaried lifeguard, John  (Jack) Carter taught swimming at the Palm Beach rock pool in summer.
 

The northernmost of Sydney's Northern Beaches, Palm Beach derives its name from the cabbage tree palms that still grow in the southern corner of the beach, still officially called Cabbage Tree Boat Harbour. There are quite a few Cabbage Tree Bays, Cabbage Tree Harbours, Cabbage Tree creeks and places called 'Cabbage Tree' around Australia's east coast. The Cabbage Tree is a native Australian palm (Livistona australis) found in the lowland forests and swamps of eastern Australia and once common in the Sydney area. The 'cabbage' is the palm's growing tip, which was a traditional food for Aboriginal people and a popular food with Australia's early European settlers, but harvesting this 'cabbage' kills the tree. In the ninetenth-century, cabbage tree fibres were used to make the popular cabbage tree hats.

1906
Warringah Shire was formed.

Before 1910
Transport to Palm Beach was very difficult, even for the affluent early adopters of the motor car.

1925
There were few houses on the ocean side of Palm Beach and only the affluent could afford to build second homes there.

1992
Pittwater Council was formed to administer what had been the northern part of Warringah Shire.

National Trust of Australia (NSW)

Late 1920s surf club creation. Associated with residents, visitors, surf club, swimming club, the 1948 Australian Olympic Swim team, swimming coach Forbes Carlisle and swimming teacher John (Jack) Carter. Seen in TV's Home and Away. Attractive subject for photographers.

Assessed significance: Local
Current heritage status: Not yet given heritage status.
 

Related Topics Artworks & artists Learn-to-swim Spear fishing Surf clubs Swim clubs Swimming Tourism Unemployment relief works

Studies & References National Trust listing EJE Landscape Architects & Christa Ludlow. Survey of Harbourside & Ocean Pools of the Sydney Metropolitan Region. Prepared for the National Trust of Australia (NSW), 1994.