Victoria Baths With Attached Forecourt Walls

MANCHESTER

SJ8595 HATHERSAGE ROAD, Longsight 698-1/22/731 (North side) 18/01/83 Victoria Baths with attached forecourt walls

II*

Public baths. 1906. Red brick with buff terracotta dressings, steeply-pitched slate roofs with glass skylights. Large rectangular plan formed by an entrance range parallel to the street with 3 parallel bath halls to the rear. Eclectic style combining Jacobean and Baroque elements. Two-and-a-half storey main range with single-storey wings and 2-storey bath halls, with basements. The entrance block is a symmetrical 5-bay composition, with 3:2:1:2:3 windows, the centre and end bays breaking forwards slightly and steeply gabled, and flanked by single-storey 3-window side wings on the same axis, all stridently banded, and with tourelles to the gabled outer bays, swan-neck pediments to the apex of the gables, banded chimneys, and a large clock turret on the centre of the roof. The centre has a canted bay at ground floor with mullion-and-transom windows and a parapet with moulded terracotta panel, but all other ground floor openings are round-headed with keyed terracotta surrounds, including a doorway with Ionic shafts in the centre of each of the 3-window end bays, and a similar doorway in the centre of the side wing to the right (with terracotta panel above lettered "FEMALES"). The 1st floor has cross-windows and a 6-light mullion-and-transom window in the centre, all with keystones over each light and low swan-neck pediments. The attic has Venetian-style 3-light windows in the outer gables, a single round-headed window in the centre, and segmental-pedimented dormers between these. The domed clock-turret is mounted on a mansard with balustraded parapet. Rectangular forecourt enclosed by wall which has 3 gateways with wrought-iron gates, and square piers at regular intervals with pedestals of former urns. Left return wall in similar but simpler style, with 5 gables; right-hand return wall with blank arcade. Interior: principal entrance hall in left wing, with 2-bay screen and staircase of dark green glazed terracotta in Baroque style; all pools galleried on 3 sides, No.1 Pool with Art Nouveau railings, Nos 1 and 3 Pools with original changing cubicles beneath the galleries but No.2 Pool altered as sports hall; blank arcaded side walls, Venetian windows in the gable walls; Turkish Baths at east end of front range.

Listing NGR: SJ8572595951