McIver Women's Baths, Heritage swimming pool in Coogee, Australia

The McIver Women's Baths feature a rock platform with concrete walls built into the ocean at Coogee Beach, creating a natural seawater swimming enclosure. The structure takes advantage of coastal rocks and tidal patterns to form a sheltered bathing space.

Randwick Council excavated the rock pool to depth, enclosed it with concrete walls and opened it as women-only baths in 1876; construction ran until 1886. In 1918 the baths passed into private hands under Robert and Rose McIver, and the Coogee Ladies Amateur Swimming Club has managed them since 1923. They joined the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 18 November 2011.

The baths are reserved for women and their female children; boys may enter only up to age 13 and accompanied by their mother. Since 1923 the Coogee Ladies Amateur Swimming Club has managed the pool, which generations of mothers, older women, women with disabilities and women from Islamic and Catholic communities have used.

Access is via Grant Reserve, which has changing facilities and showers, with opening times that shift based on the season and tides. It helps to check conditions beforehand since safety and water access depend on weather and tidal movements.

Fanny Durack and Mina Wylie, who took gold and silver in the 100 m freestyle at the 1912 Stockholm Games, trained at these baths; these were the first Olympic medals won by Australian women swimmers. The pool passed to Robert and Rose McIver in 1918 and has been run by the Coogee Ladies Amateur Swimming Club since 1923.