page_title: Victoria Baths
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Victoria Baths / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The stalls around the main pool in April 2011.
context_page_description: Victoria Baths is a Grade II* listed building, in the Chorlton-on-Medlock area of Manchester, in northwest England. The Baths opened to the public in 1906 and cost £59,144 to build. Manchester City Council closed the baths in 1993 and the building was left empty. A multimillion-pound restoration project began in 2007. As of 2009, the building is on English Heritage's Heritage at Risk Register.
context_section_description: The baths were designed by the City Surveyor, T. de Courcy Meade, and his assistant, Arthur Davies. The work was supervised by Henry Price, the newly appointed city architect.  The baths were opened in September 1906 by the Lord Mayor of Manchester who described the building as a "water palace". For 86 years the Baths provided both essential and leisure facilities. Private baths and a laundry were housed there along with three swimming pools and a Turkish bath, later a Sauna was added. The main swimming pool was floored over in the winter months to hold dances. In 1952 the Victoria Baths installed the first public Aeratone (jacuzzi) in the country.
  In the design and construction of the Baths, a great deal of money was expended, Manchester having at that time one of the world's wealthiest municipal coffers. The façade has multi-coloured brickwork and terracotta decoration, the main interior public spaces are clad in glazed tiles from floor to ceiling and most of the many windows have decorative stained glass.
  The Baths were closed by Manchester City Council in 1993. The Friends of Victoria Baths was formed and began to investigate the possibility of running the Victoria Baths independently.
  Various fund-raising attempts failed to bring about a restoration of the Baths, although work to prevent further deterioration of the building started in 1998.
caption: Stalls surrounding the main pool in 2011
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ28", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Microsoft Windows Photo Gallery 6.0.6001.18000", "Image DateTime": "2011:04:03 20:16:46", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "274", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D2": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Image Tag 0xC6D3": "[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Rotated 90 CW", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "10444", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6294", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/40", "EXIF FNumber": "3", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2011:04:03 14:12:41", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2011:04:03 14:12:41", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-33/100", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "37/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2736", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3648", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9884", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "42", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF OffsetSchema": "-350"}