Anyone who has read the blog for a while will know that I’ve spent a chunk of the past ten years championing Moseley Road Baths, a Grade II* listed Edwardian Swimming Pool in inner city Brum. It’s a spectacular building, full of marble flooring, stained glass, original tilework, huge steel arches and wooden panelling. It houses old ‘slipper baths’ for washing, which were used up until 2004 and closed during my brief stint working on Reception in the building. It even has a steam heated drying rack, a remnant from its former days when the public laundry was a busy and important amenity for the local community.
But really those bits are incidental. What really makes the space so alive and vital is the way it embraces the local community. It’s not just somewhere to swim, it’s a real community hub. Many swimmers have been coming for decades.
The Friends of Moseley Road Baths wanted to capture this, so asked me to make a film as part of their ongoing collaboration with the World Monuments Fund, since Moseley Road Baths was listed on their 2016 Watch List. The resulting film was used to kickstart a month long social media campaign to show some love for the building before the scheduled closure in Summer 2017.
If you need that again, here’s the deal…
- Share online through words or images why you want to swim at Moseley Road Baths
- Use #keepswimmingmrb – and #moseleyroadbaths if you can too!
- Share the posts that are being put up by the Friends of Moseley Road Baths and spread the love!
To see the results, head over to the group’s Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages. And don’t forget to contribute and share!