THE Faith Leech Aquatic Centre clubroom walls have fallen nearly 55 years after they rose in Barnard Street.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Workers knocked down interiors on Monday and were demolishing external walls on Tuesday.
The building was used by the Bendigo Hawks Aquatic Swim Club until they moved into another structure at the Faith Leech Aquatic Centre recently, making room for a redevelopment of the site.
The Hawks' club has a long history at Barnard Street that dated back to February 12, 1917 and once included among its members Faith Leech, the city's only Olympic gold medalist.
The Hawks held an afternoon tea in August to farewell the building and to display photos and memorabilia connected with the clubrooms, secretary Charron Trainor said.
"It was really nice. We had different generations of people who swam there and over the course of the afternoon people wandered through. It brought back a lot of memories for them," she previously said.
The demolition opens the door for a transformation of the last remaining slice of the Bendigo Municipal Baths.
The pond stretched through the Faith Leech Aquatic Centre grounds and served as a public swimming area until 1958, when a concrete-bottomed pool was built.
Demolishing the building will allow the pond to be viewed from the street, according to a planning application lodged by the City of Greater Bendigo with its planning department in June.
That application was part of a wider push to bring some of Rosalind Park's character up towards Barnard Street.
The council hopes one day to have a public space around the remaining section of the baths complete with boardwalks and barbecue facilities.
It has been working on the redesign but it yet to make those plans public.
One of its goals will be to make the area less appealing to resident ibises, the council's parks and open space manager Paul Gangell said in September last year.
Neighbours had complained about the ibises' smell and noise at the baths.
Have you signed up to the Bendigo Advertiser's daily newsletter and breaking news emails? You can register below and make sure you are up to date with everything that's happening in central Victoria.