A bit of vintage ..... heaps of history .... all in a day at Victoria Baths

 Yesterday we dopped into Victoria Baths.

It is a place I have known and walked past heaps of times since I first arrived in the city over 50 years ago.

But that said it is also a place I never went into, and that is a shame.

So, on the strength of two tickets to the Vintage Home Show on Sunday we discovered the former baths, which opened 1906, Victoria Baths and “was described as ‘the most splendid municipal bathing institution in the country’ and ‘a water palace of which every citizen of Manchester can be proud.’

The building provided spacious and extensive facilities for swimming, bathing and leisure. 

It was built of the highest quality materials with many period decorative features: stained glass, tiles, and mosaic floors.

Victoria Baths served the people of central Manchester for 87 years and established themselves in the affections of all those who used the facilities”. *

I could say more about its history, the campaign to save it and its present role as a “popular heritage, events and community venue” but I would only be lifting the information from their own excellent web site so I won’t, other than suggest you follow the link link to them. *

The Vintage Home Show was that mix of “stuff” much of which was commonplace in most homes in the middle decades of the last century but has now gained the title of vintage.

And that is a bittersweet thing for me, because having been born in the first half of the last century, grown up in the 1950s, became a teenager in the 60s and a proper adult in the 1970s, most of what was on offer didn’t feel vintage to me, but just the backdrop to my life.

But its presence for sale here in Victoria Baths was a recognition that I too have become vintage …..  perhaps not with the price tag that accompanies so many of the items but still a walking example of old.

All of which could be painful, more so when I think how cheap some of the objects were when they entered our house, but I will desist and instead reflect on the architecture of the Baths.

It is an ornate and impressive public building and reminded me of the one in Deptford I used to go.

It too was full of glazed coloured tiles which looked good and were easy to clean and like Victoria Baths had a series of pools given over to mixed bathing as well as a segregated alternative.

More than the grandeur it was the memories that came flooding back, memories of walking into the swimming baths on a cold February day and being hit by the wall of warm and the smell of chlorine. 

A sensation which could be overpowering and had the ability to cause you to start perspiring almost before you had got into the changing cubicles.

And afterwards the way that your clothes did not feel as comfortable, which might have had something to do with damp socks and the tangled underwear which in my case was because I never dried myself properly.

Nor were you ever prepared for walking back out of warm steamy place into the cold on the other side of the door, or that ravenous appetite which usually meant ending up in the chip shop on the way home.

So, did I enjoy the Vintage Home Show?  

Yes, up to a point but how much more fun was it to walk through the baths themselves.

Location; Victoria Baths

Pictures, inside Victoria Baths, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Victoria Baths, https://victoriabaths.org.uk/about/

Levenshulme’s Culture Hub ... another story from Tony Goulding

Levenshulme Old Library

This building currently houses the studio of All F.M. 96.9, a Manchester Community Radio Station “The Real Voice of Manchester” and a Community Arts Centre with a varied range of activities. 

It was built in 1904 as one of the libraries gifted by the philanthropist, Andrew Carnegie, an American industrialist.

Born in Dunfermline, Scotland in 1835 Andrew Carnegie emigrated with his family as a 12-year-old to the United States. 

Having amassed a huge fortune by establishing the American steel industry, in the form of The Pittsburgh Carnegie Steel Company, he spent the last 20 years of his life engaged in various philanthropic endeavours. 

Andrew Carnegie in 1913

His main benefactions were the provision of upwards of 2,500 public libraries, worldwide, of which over 650 were in the U.K.  These included, as well as this one in Levenshulme, Stockport’s Central Library and those at Eccles and the 3, then new, suburbs of South Manchester – Didsbury, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, and latterly, Withington.

The Library's Foundation Stone

The Carnegie funding of a library was dependent on the local authority meeting a number of requirements to demonstrate their community’s need for a library and its commitment to sustain the operating costs once the new library had been built. Design plans for the new building would then be sent to Carnegie’s office in New York, for approval. (1)

In 1904,  Levenshulme was the first area of South Manchester to provide its citizens with a free library in this way, while it was still governed by the Levenshulme Urban District Council. The residents of Didsbury, Withington and Chorlton-cum-Hardy had to wait until they were incorporated into the City of Manchester. Each area was promised a library as an inducement to vote for incorporation. (2)

The new library was opened on the 3rd December, 1904 by Mr. C. A. Cripps K.C. (3) the member of parliament for the Stretford constituency which at that time included Levenshulme.

 

Library side view

A notable user of the library was Lord Norman Foster the renowned architect, responsible for the designs of “The Gherkin” and the New Wembley Stadium amongst many others, who was born in neighbouring Reddish and lived from the age of two at 4, Crescent Grove in Levenshulme. He was an avid reader and frequent visitor to the library as he studied Architecture at The University of Manchester.

The library closed when the service removed to the new “Arcadia” Library and Leisure Centre on Stockport Road opened in February, 2016. The building remained empty for almost two years before being re-opened as a community arts centre and the new studios of All F.M. 96.9 Radio. 

  All F.M. began broadcasting in 2000 and prior to its re-location to the Old Library was based at a former doctor’s surgery, 19, Albert Road, Levenshulme. Its output is a varied mixture of shows aimed at giving a “voice” to all the different communities in the area. In 2019/20 it won the award: Community Radio Station of the Year and more recently was a recipient of The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.

Immediately opposite the library at the junction of Barlow Road and Cromwell Grove is another iconic building of old Levenshulme, the public baths.

An early user of this facility was Ethel Ivy “Sunny” Lowry, one of the first British women to swim across the English Channel, who lived at Lindeth Lodge, Rushford Avenue, Levenshulme. 

The Swimming Baths showing separate entrances for Males and Females!

She was born, in neighbouring Longsight on the 2nd January, 1911, so was only 22-years-old when she accomplished her epic feat on the 29th August, 1933. 

Built in 1921, it closed on the same day as the library opposite but sadly, as yet, has not had a new lease of life.

Her father, William Henry Lowry, who was a successful fish and game merchant sadly died just over 3 months after Ethel Ivy completed her swim. She was also said to be the second cousin of the celebrated artist L. S. Lowry.

Pictures; Levenshulme Library and Swimming Baths from the collection of Tony Goulding, side view of the library courtesy of Andrea Martinez. Andrew Carnegie in 1913 by Theodore C. Marceau in Public Domain from United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cph.3c01767.

Notes

1) Famously, Manchester City Council submitted the plans for the Library at Chorlton-cum-Hardy aboard the ill-fated liner “The Titanic” and they had to be re-sent.

2) Although both Chorlton and Didsbury soon got their libraries (in 1914 and 1915 respectively), Withington had to wait until 1927 before the council made good on this promise.

3) Sir Charles Alfred Cripps (later Lord Parmoor) was a Conservative member of Parliament who famously "crossed the house" and later became Lord President of the Council and Leaderof the House of Lords in the Cabinet of Ramsay MacDonald’s first Labour Goverment of 1923. He was also appointed Britain’s representative to the newly-formed League of Nations of which he had been a great supporter. His  youngest son Richard Stafford Cripps held a number of posts in both the Wartime and the post-war Labour Cabinets, culminating in the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Down in Deptford thinking about Eltham Baths

Now I never went to Eltham Baths which is a pity but by the time we had washed up in Well Hall in the spring of 1964 I had plenty of other ways of using up my time.

In fact thinking about it I can remember only one day spent at a pool and that was the open air one down in Welling on one gloriously hot summer’s day in 1967.

So my memories of Eltham Baths are limited to those few times it was my turn to pick my sisters up and the odd ride past on the 21 down to Lewisham.

Instead my fondest memories are for the swimming baths at Deptford which was a grand old building and one which made you feel special had all the magic and grandeur of any Prince’s palace.

It was off the main road just past the Town Hall and seemed even to a seven year old an odd location.
Laurie Grove is a narrow enough street and the baths were sandwiched between houses.

But what it offered was magic enough.

It began as you entered and were hit by that mix of warm air, the smell chlorinated water and noise.

And even before you had bought your ticket and gone through the turn style the hot sticky atmosphere made your winter clothes stick to you, which continued as you walked along the pool side to the changing rooms.

The bigger of the two contained a water shute along with diving platforms which were both a terror and an abiding source of attraction for the young and a constant challenge to achieve the slide or dive without being stopped by the attendant.

But for many the Baths were less a place of fun and more an essential to everyday life.  Like many others it offered had a set of slipper baths for those who no bath at home.

Nor were these the only ones.  Just behind where we used to live was the old Peckham Health Centre and along with its own big pool it also had baths.

Now we were lucky in that we had a bathroom but my friend Hugh and his siblings would make the short journey across the road armed with soap and their own towels once a week.

And it was there in the Health Centre that we had our swimming lessons made all the more enjoyable by those odd incidents like the day Paul Driver fell into the baths fully clothed and for ever after was known as Dribble.

It had opened in 1926 a mere babe compared to the Deptford Baths which had opened in 1898 and just missed its centenary closing in 1991.

By comparison the baths at Eltham were just a newcomer.  They were opened in 1939, closed in 2008 and demolished three years later.
Still those down there at Laurie Grove have survived and while no one can splash and shout inside its impressive facade, the building has been retained and is well worth a visit.

Picture; ©  Dr Neil Clifton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence. http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1786698