Review: Greater Manchester's Public Swimming Pools: A Pictorial Guide

The Shrieking Violet issue 15 featured a page about Levenshulme Baths, the historic swimming pool in the Manchester suburb of Levenshulme, drawn and written by John Mather, who got in contact after setting himself the challenge of swimming in each of Greater Manchester's 50-odd public pools.

His project is now complete, and the resulting guide, Greater Manchester's Public Swimming Pools: A Pictorial Guide, is out now. Mather's watery journey was a labour of love, and he fights the corner for what he terms “swimming's unique and often understated role in society” – the Guide is clear that the function of swimming reaches far beyond health and fitness to encompass social and community benefits. As well as acting as a guide to each building and each pool's facilities, Mather's book goes out beyond the pool doors to take a wider look at the people and communities they serve, taking care to include something memorable or special about each pool's location, from local landmarks to famous innovations such as Rolls-Royce (Stretford) and Stephenson's Rocket (Eccles), and show the “fascinating and diverse collection of towns and people” that is Greater Manchester. Each entry is handily annotated with essential information such as contact details, location and amenities such as parking.

Mather's love affair with swimming started when he learned to swim in Bury's old Victorian baths, which “seemed not just a place to swim but more like a landmark of civic pride and opulence”. Just as there is a huge diversity of towns in Greater Manchester, there is a great variety in the styles of pools found within them, from those associated with Manchester's first city architect, Henry Price, in the early twentieth century, with the old-fashioned pool-side cubicles remaining (Withington, Chorlton), to a number of pools built in the 1960s and 1970s – including Radcliffe Pool which, Mather said, set a benchmark for future pool building by local authorities – as well as recently opened, bang up-to-date facilities and even a pool in a converted cinema (Tyldesley). Mather views each pool on its merits, without expressing a preference for any architectural period or style.

The Guide is often humorous, and Mather slips in references to local celebrities, from the Rochdale Pioneers, who opened the first successful co-operative shop in the town, to Frank Sidebottom (Altrincham), John Cooper Clarke (Broughton) and George Formby (Atherton), as well as local personalities such as longstanding swimmer Sam Quinn, who has been a Broadway Baths regular for 75 years.

Dive below the surface, and you discover stories about the individuals who have used these pools over the years. Greater Manchester, Mather says, has a long tradition of swimming and Olympic success, a “long forgotten 'Golden Age' of swimming prior to the First World War”, when “Greater Manchester's swimmers literally led the world”. For instance, Henry Taylor from Chadderton, a swimming instructor for many years in the town, won three golds at the 1908 London Olympics. Today, the region's pools are used by everyone from learner swimmers to elite swimmers from national and international teams, and have hosted many Olympic and Commonwealth medallists.

Pool buildings have social history written into their brickwork and tiles. Now derelict, Collier Street Baths in Salford, opened in 1856, is Britain's oldest surviving swimming baths building. Withington Baths in Manchester, which still says 'Men' and 'Women' above the entrance where the sexes would once have been separated before entering the water, took the daring step of allowing the city's first mixed bathing in 1914. No visit to Manchester's pools, of course, would be complete without a reference to Edwardian water palace Victoria Baths (despite the current lack of water!), and Mather considers the past, present and future uses of the building.

I read the Guide as a call to action, a reminder to get swimming and use some of these pools before they disappear forever. Rochdale's spectacular art deco Central Baths, which were still in use as recently as this summer, have now been demolished. The futures of Levenshulme and Chorlton Baths are both uncertain, and there are plans to close the historic, much-loved Royton and Crompton pools in Oldham (Crompton Baths is the oldest Baths in Greater Manchester still serving its original purpose) in order to replace them with a single, modern facility.

Greater Manchester's Public Swimming Pools: A Pictorial Guide can be purchased for £5.99 at www.lulu.com/shop/john-c-mather/greater-manchesters-public-swimming-pools/paperback/product-20441129.html.

Swimming in history: Historic bathing opportunities in Manchester

My friend Catriona has started a local history society (www.manchesterlocalhistory.blogspot.com) at Manchester University. I have written a guide to interesting places to go swimming for a zine she is producing for the society:

There are few types of exercise more pleasurable, relaxing and energising than swimming. Forget the modern Aquatics Centre, though: Manchester has historic swimming pools which can help you explore the stories of the city at the same time as getting fit. Some date back to times when the provision of public baths was not just for leisure, but part of a wider effort to improve public cleanliness and hygiene, and some are in buildings that are symbolic and influential to the city’s history.

Local authorities across the country started to provide public pools and laundries for their citizens after the Public Baths and Wash Houses Act of 1846. Even into the twentieth century, many people had no water in their houses, let alone an inside bathroom. In Manchester, a number of public swimming baths and wash houses were built in densely populated residential areas by the city’s Baths and Wash Houses Committee to give people the chance to wash their clothes, have baths in privacy and enjoy the comfort of hot water. Although many are long demolished, a handful survive, some of which still function as swimming pools.

The most famous and celebrated swimming baths is Manchester’s splendid water palace Victoria Baths, which opened in 1906. Unfortunately, it ceased to open as a swimming baths in 1993 and the water was drained from the pools.

This guide covers, firstly, historic public swimming baths in which it is still possible to swim and, secondly, a couple of opportunities to swim in some of Manchester’s most luxurious historic buildings.

Levenshulme Swimming Pools, Barlow Road, Levenshulme

Levenshulme Public Baths and Washhouse opened 1921. An early claim to fame is that, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Sunny Lowry from nearby Longsight used it to train to swim the channel, becoming the first British woman to do so in 1933.

Nowadays everyone enters through the same old-fashioned gates and wooden doors, but the exterior of the building still displays signs of the social hierarchy of the time, with lettering saying ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ marking where there would once have been separate entrances for the sexes. Inside, the segregation would have continued: Levenshulme Baths has two pools, one large pool which would have been reserved for men and a smaller pool for women.

Although it’s unprepossessing from the outside, inside the building’s most striking feature is a beautiful black and white chequered tiled floor in the entrance and hallways. The dramatic effect is heightened by walls tiled in white, cream, black and grey with various combinations of decorative stripes, bands, crosses and geometric patterns. Like Victoria Baths, Chorlton Baths and Withington Baths, the pools are lined with glazed brick — white with grass green bands — that glistens rainbow colours when it catches the light. Lines of cubicles face each other across the pools under a curved ceiling.

The local community has fought threats of closure to keep Levenshulme Baths open, and it has recently undergone refurbishment — although a few years ago it attracted some controversy when it started offering naked bathing sessions for gay men.

Withington Leisure Centre, Burton Road, Withington

Withington Baths is a bit like Victoria Baths on a smaller scale, and the most ornamental of the historic pools which remain open in Manchester. Simple floral motifs adorn the brickwork outside and stained glass inside, shields and drapes pattern the tiles on the staircase, the entrance hall is paved in black and white checks and the council’s coat of arms is recreated in coloured glass above the wooden entrance doors. Light floods into the pool through a glass roof supported by a sloping wooden ceiling.

Withington Baths, which was built in 1911, was designed by Manchester’s first city architect Henry Price. As well as Victoria Baths and the also impressive but now sadly defunct Harpurhey Baths in north Manchester (which are in the process of finding a new, non-watery use as part of Manchester College), Price designed a number of other significant buildings around the city, including the pump house hydraulic power station that provided water to mills, warehouses, the town hall clock and opera house in central Manchester (the building is now part of the People’s History Museum in Spinningfields) and Withington and Didsbury Libraries.

In 1914, Withington Baths became the first baths in Manchester to allow mixed bathing, and it also made no distinction between social classes — often, pools also separated ‘first class males’ from ‘second class males’. Nowadays, the facilities have been expanded to include a gym, and there’s also a sauna just off the side of the pool. Customers have the choice of using either modern changing complexes or old-fashioned style cubicles lining the side of the pool.

Chorlton Leisure Centre, Manchester Road, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Another Henry Price building, from 1929, which still featured separate entrances for men and women .

Although it has cubicles lining the pool side, Chorlton Baths is largely uninteresting on the inside, with a low flat ceiling and little in the way of decoration. The most interesting thing to see is a plaque erected a the time of opening by Manchester’s Baths and Washhouses Committee which lists the councillors present, including a Mr W Onions.

Radisson Edwardian Hotel, Peter Street, Manchester city centre

There are few places more important to Manchester’s history than the site occupied by the 5 star Radisson Edwardian Hotel. The modern, luxurious hotel (which is so comfortable Sven Goran Eriksson made it his home during his time as Manchester City’s manager) stands behind the facade of the Free Trade hall, probably the most famous building in Manchester. The Free Trade Hall, which has actually been built and rebuilt a few times, was erected close to the site of the Peterloo Massacre of 1819, a protest for democratic reform which turned nasty when mounted soldiers charged the crowd. The building has gone on to host events important to the city’s political and cultural history, from anti corn law meetings in the 1830s and '40s to the Halle orchestra’s first concert in 1858.

If Victoria Baths was the height of luxury in Edwardian swimming baths, then Sienna Spa, in the basement of the hotel, is the ultimate in swimming luxury today. Whereas Victoria Baths’ opulence is created by an ornate décor of tiles and stained glass, the Radisson hotel’s understated black and cream colour scheme is sleek, smooth and minimalist. The small pool glows electric blue, lit from beneath the water.

Swim laps, float on your back, bubble in the Jacuzzi or sit in the sauna and steam room whilst contemplating that, a few floors above, Christabel Pankhust and Annie Kenney raised the question of votes for women in 1905, Dylan dared go electric in 1966 and was heckled with ‘Judas’, and various Manchester music luminaries saw the Sex Pistols play an influential gig in the Lesser Free Trade Hall.

Midland Hotel, Peter Street, Manchester city centre

Just down the road from the Free Trade Hall is another luxury hotel with a health club in the basement.

The huge, redbrick and terracotta Midland Hotel is significant to Manchester’s history as it was built in 1903 by the Midland Railway company next to the Manchester Central train station and used by American cotton traders visiting Manchester on business. In 1906, Mr Rolls met Mr Royce at the hotel, leading to the foundation of the famous car company, and Adolf Hitler apparently once considered it as a potential venue for Nazi headquarters in Britain. Along with the Radisson, it’s taken over by politicians every two years for the Labour Party conference.

The pool is smaller and shabbier than the Radisson’s but overlooks the gym so, whilst you watch gym goers getting hot and sweaty on a treadmill, you can feel thankful that you are splashing around in warm water — a vastly superior form of exercise!

For opening hours and swim times visit:

www.manchestersportandleisure.org/activities/swimming (Levenshulme, Withington and Chorlton)
www.siennaspa.co.uk (Radisson Edwardian Hotel)
www.qhotels.co.uk/hotels/the-midland-manchester/leisure.aspx (Midland Hotel)

Victoria Baths - Manchester's Water Palace reopens to visitors this weekend

It’s that time of year again. The days are getting longer, flowers are blooming, the sun is coming out more often - and one of Manchester’s best loved buildings is having a spring clean and reopening to the public.

Victoria Baths’ popular open days, held on the first Sunday of every month, will recommence on April 5, after the building (still in a derelict state and without heating) was closed for the long, cold winter.

There’s more to do than just look around a building - the opening will be marked with a choir performance, and other first Sundays will see table top sales, a Lego workshop and more musical entertainment and performances, as well as the usual café and souvenir stalls.

Even without that entertainment, though, and in its still dilapidated state, a visit to the Baths is a breathtaking experience. In September 2003, 282,018 people voted it the winner of BBC2’s Restoration programme, winning it £3.5million (including £3million from the heritage lottery fund). It was granted a further £450,000 by English Heritage, which has helped to start returning it to its former glory.

Restoration phase 1 was completed in 2008, and work should start this summer on making the Gala pool fit for use again, as well as restoring the Turkish Baths. However, it will cost £20million to fully restore the building, and you can see why when you’re lost inside its grand scale and overwhelmed by its pomp and circumstance - the Baths is from a different age, when public buildings were built with ambition that went far beyond their functionality, and aimed to inspire the public and instill respect and awe. The Baths' future and place in the day to day life of modern Manchester is still uncertain, as it’s owned by a private developer - suggestions include conversion into mixed used space that will incorporate offices.
From the outside, the Grade 2* listed building is imposing, standing like a large mint striped with multicoloured bricks and terracotta. That doesn’t prepare you for the inside, however, and the three huge prism ceilings. You can wander round the balconies and gaze down into the pools.

The attention to detail is incredible, from the cast iron blue swimming cubicles with their candy stripe pink and white curtains and the ornate ironwork of the turnstiles at the front of the building to the mosaics with their fish designs and the panelled ceiling of the Turkish Baths. Light smears the glazed Pilkington tiles that decorate the first class males entrance hall from floor to ceiling like petrol making rainbow colours in puddles of water.

The jewel in Victoria Baths' crown, though, is undoubtedly the stained glass that adorns the building, culminating in the gorgeous Art Deco style Angel of Purity in the Turkish Baths Rest Room. When the building floods with light on a sunny day, the windows cast patterns on the ceiling, walls and floors and it feels like you’re walking into a stained glass window.

Victoria Baths was designed by Manchester’s first city architect, Henry Price, and built between 1903 and 1906, at huge expense. Opened in 1906, Manchester’s Lord Mayor, called it “a water palace of which every citizen of Manchester is proud”. There are sister baths in Withington and Harpurhey (which is similarly derelict, and finally closed to the public in 2001), also designed by Price, but Victoria Baths is undeniably the grandest and most spectacular. Unfortunately, the council did not share the public’s enthusiasm for Victoria Baths, which was becoming more and more expensive to maintain and repair, and the building closed in 1993, despite public opposition and being occupied by protestors.The building almost has a personality of its own, and looks like a film star (which it is). The Baths has featured in various films and TV series over the years including Prime Suspect, Life on Mars, the Barry Gibb film Now Voyager and, most recently, the execrable programme How to Look Good Naked, in which Gok Wan and Mylenne Klass encouraged women to strip naked and hosed them down in the baths.

Even in its emptiness - perhaps because the pools, drained of water, amplify the ghosts of its former users - the Baths seem alive; with memories, such as the sound of children’s laughter at swimming galas, with ambition, with the large personalities that came be associated Victoria Baths, including the strict swimming teachers that are reminisced about at open days over and over again.

Visitors at open days are encouraged to give their memories of the Baths for the Victoria Baths archives. The dances that were held when the floors were tiled over for the winter, sound tracked by popular jazz bands, often feature, and many couples have fond memories of meeting at the baths. Others, children, pupils at local schools at the time, describe visiting the Baths in their lunch hours and spending their pocket money on Bovril and toast from the café.

That’s what must be remembered about the Baths - the role it played in people’s lives. When it opened, the authorities hoped every child in Manchester would be taught to swim, and this was encouraged through the following decades with free swimming passes for children achieving swimming certificates. South Manchester Swimming Club had its home at the Baths, and who wouldn’t be inspired by the magnificence of the building? The Olympic swimmers Zilpha Grant and Dianne Ashton trained in the pool, as well as the Sunny Lowry, the first British woman to swim the channel in 1933, who remained a familiar sight at the Baths until her death at the age of 97 last year.

The Baths go beyond a sporting utility though. Built at a time when much of the surrounding terraced housing didn’t have bathrooms, families had the weekly luxury of a bath in the building. Women visited the Baths to do their laundry and friendships were forged in the Turkish Baths restrooms.

In many ways, the building is very of its time - there are separate entrances for 1st class males, 2nd class and females, and separate pools, but it’s proved adaptable over the years, even hosting Factory Records parties in the years before its closure. The building has been put to imaginative use as an arts venue over the last few years too, including inviting an artist in residence, Ally Wallace, to create a large scale work in response to the building last year.

It’s important a financially sustainable use is found to keep Victoria Baths open to the public, not just as a tribute to beautiful architecture and design. It’s a reminder of the history of the areas around it - Victoria Park, Longsight and Levenshulme, but especially Ardwick, which in recent years has changed beyond all recognition. As well as being a concrete monument to personal history and memories, it’s a fascinating document of the way we were, the way the Victorians thought, and how far we’ve come. It’s also a tribute to the innovations in building and sanitation that found their way into the design, including Victoria Baths having its own well and water supply. The Baths also housed the first public aerotone - a kind of early Jacuzzi - in the country.

Victoria Baths
Hathersage Road
Chorlton on Medlock (just off Oxford Road, behind the Royal Infirmary)
Manchester
M13 OFE

Open days, starting on April 5, take place every first Sunday between 12-4pm and cost £2 for adults, free for children.

Guided tours of the building will take start at 2pm every Wednesday from April 1, and cost £4.

www.victoriabaths.org.uk