When they took away my swimming baths ……..

So, after years of waiting for something to happen that building on Manchester Road is being demolished.

Poster place, 2022

For many of us who knew and loved it as our swimming baths it’s passing is a little sad. 

But just how sad I wonder? 

Reading carefully the news story of the demolition and the new development it appears it will offer much needed accommodation for the over 50s and include affordable homes.* 

Overgrown, 2022

I am loath to see any historic building vanish, especially one which represented a promise fulfilled to the voters of Chorlton when we voted to join Manchester in 1904. 

Added to which I have many fond memories of taking the kids there. 

But the building which dated from the 1920s is not unique architecturally and was perhaps tired for the purpose it had been erected.

That said they are a bit of Chorlton’s history which when opened had “two swimming baths – one for men and one for women, wash-baths and a suite of Turkish Baths.” **

They were the fulfilment of a promise made in 1904 but only fulfilled years later.  

Along with the promise to build the library, the Corporation had also offered to provide swimming baths. 

In 1915 there had been moves to buy land beside the railway for the sum of £730 and five years later the City Council was seeking to raise money to acquire the site. ***

Finally in the September of 1929 we got those baths and perhaps the wait was worth it.  According to the Manchester Guardian a large crowd gathered outside on Manchester Road, and while the building “could not be described as a thing of beauty, it has two swimming baths – one for men and one for women, wash-baths and a suite of Turkish Baths.” ****

The cost to attend the Turkish Baths was half a crown which The Manchester Guardian reported would allow “the people of Chorlton to lie for half an hour or so in a pale blue room amidst blue sofas and blue curtains” concluding that “thus has luxury come to Chorlton.”

That said Miss Annie Lee speaking on behalf of the City Council at the opening of the Baths argued “that it was time we ceased to think of the Turkish bath as a luxury invented for the sole use of elderly and obese millionaires.”

Now that is a sentiment I approve of and I would like to have met her.  She was born in 1875 and was elected to represent Gorton South as a councillor in 1919 and was the first woman Alderman on the City Council.  

You can come in now ..... official opening, 1929

As a member of the Labour Party on the Council she successfully opposed the Education Committees attempts in 1922 to reintroduce the prewar regulation which prevented married women from becoming teachers.  

The prohibition had been relaxed during the war but authorities across the country began to reassert the ban allowing only married woman “whose husbands were unable to support them” or women “who had great teaching abilities.”

Miss Lee also campaigned in 1929 for the Public Health Committee to give instructions in birth control in Council clinics, was active on the old Board of Guardians and later in 1930 on the Public Assistance Committee.

Alderman Wright Robinson recalled she was “a woman who had the strongest convictions and stood by them fearlessly, whilst her independence could be described as fierce.  Nothing could shake her on such matters as Sabbath observance and opposition to Sunday games or equal pay for women.” *****

Nothing to do, 2022

Many I think might be intrigued by that reference to “Sabbath observance and opposition to Sunday games” but would concede that in some instances Sunday working has led to exploitation and certainly the Gorton United Trades and Labour Committee were on record as expressing the opinion that “the feminist and trade union causes owe her a great debt.”

And that is it.

Over the years there has been speculation on what might happen to the site  including the suggestion that Unicorn might move in.****** 

The  announcement of the demolition had met with a mixed response including one from someone who clearly hadn’t read the article before making wild assertions about who might become residents of the new development.

And now that building so loved by so many for so many years is being demolished as I write, and on hand yesterday were Andy Robertson and Dave Kennedy who recorded the work as Derek the Demolition machine did its business.

Leaving me just to revisit memories of  that clammy feel as you exited the changing booth with at least one sock not quite on properly while the sleeve of your tee shirt was damp from falling on the wet floor of the changing room, and just how hungry you felt.

Yesterday as recorded by Dave Kennedy

Adapted from The Quirks of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Andrew Simpson and Peter Topping, 2018

Location' Manchester Road, Chorlton

Pictures; Chorlton Leisure Centre, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, an impression of the new homes, 2023, courtesy of Manchester City Council,  and the opening of the Baths, 1929, m77636, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass knocking down today, from the collection of Dave Kennedy and Andy Robertson, 2024

And a little later by Andy Robertson

*Former Chorlton Leisure Centre could be turned into dozens of affordable homes, Hakim Hafazalla, February, 13th, 2023, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/former-chorlton-leisure-centre-could-26226682?fbclid=IwAR0d_KN7U8E_vhkyXVV44oQtWKb5OgXEYPwxtv--hOZfXwW_NlbI9vpm8lA

**Manchester, the Manchester Guardian, September 20, 1929

*** Ibid, the Manchester Guardian, September 20, 1929

****  Alderman Annie Lee Obituary, Manchester Guardian October 26, 1945

***** Chorlton’s Unicorn Grocery could be moving... to former Chorlton leisure centre, Beth Abbit, April 22, 2016, MEN, http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/chorltons-unicorn-grocery-could-moving-11223328