Category: News

Place Prospectors’ artworks for Stirchley Baths

Emma and Jayne from Place Prospectors
Emma and Jayne from Place Prospectors

It was great to meet Emma Larkinson and Jayne Murray from Place Prospectors to hear all about a piece of artwork they’ve been commissioned to produce as part of the project to bring Stirchley Baths back into use as a community hub.

In fact, Emma and Jayne (who organised the Stirchley Prospects and Love Stirchley More events) will be producing two pieces of artwork.

The first will be a piece of participatory art that will be started in June when the funding bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) is submitted. It will be called (somewhat fittingly at this critical stage in the project) ‘Sink or Swim’ and will require lots of community participation, so we’ll keep you updated on the details for this so you can get involved.

The second piece of artwork will be housed inside the community hub and Emma and Jayne have a number of ideas that they’re working up. They talk about them in detail in the interview but some ideas include:

  • Signs made of glitterboard (a material that moves and ripples gently, giving an appearance of water) to direct people from the rear of the Baths to the entrance at the front
  • There is space in the entrance lobby for a welcome mat. In fact, an indentation in the floor shows clearly where the original would have been. Emma and Jayne are thinking of making a new welcome mat

A large golden coloured and elaborate ceremonial key - used for opening the stirchley baths in 1911.

    • Remember the ceremonial key that was used to open the Baths in 1911? A new one could be made to mark the re-opening of the building as a community hub
    • Emma and Jayne are looking to utilise the bore hole in the Baths. When it opened, the original plan was to well for water but, unfortunately, a source was never found
listen to ‘Place Prospectors' Emma and Jayne on their artwork for Stirchley Baths’ on Audioboo

What do you think of Emma and Jayne’s ideas? You can get involved and pass on your thoughts and ideas by mailing stirchleybaths@gmail.com or connecting with us on Twitter and Facebook

Some of the ideas come from the history of the site long before the Baths were built. Research by Emma and Jayne has uncovered some fascinating details of what took place on the site, including:

1830: The Beer House Act led to the opening of many beer houses in an attempt to minimise the drinking of gin! The Black Horse beerhouse and stables opened on the site of Stirchkey Baths in this year

In the 1890s a wonderfully named Blood Tub Theatre was on the site, a tent theatre to present old melodramas

Inside Stirchley Baths April 2013

Last week I was given privileged access into the baths (I did have to plead a bit!) so I could really get a sense of the physical space within the building to help us shape our interpretative proposal for the Heritage Lottery Fund Activity plan. Architect Mark Sloane patiently answered my many questions about what historic features were being kept, restored, reused and accessible for the public – what bits people would actually be able to see.

I came away feeling decidedly grubby, but confident that the essence of the building will be maintained through the restoration – that Stirchley Baths will always be just that – but re-purposed.

I couldn’t resist making another movie – this time with some sound effects! For those of you never to have made it to an open day – here is what it looks like inside – not just in  the pool, but also in the slipper baths, Mikvah, sauna, changing room, corridors, front entrance and in the original ticket kiosk. Very sad to see what has become of the building – but so important to show how vital this Heritage Lottery grant is!

I’ll post some photos up at a later date.

Show of hands for Stirchley Baths? Ooooh Yeh!

Hands Up

Great day at Stirchley Library and outside the baths today; collecting hands, community support and ideas about how we present ‘the heritage of the baths’ to people. Amazing turnout! We estimate we engaged with over 200 people – and a huge thanks to everyone who came along today – we doubled the amount of hands we have already collected! The official count is 282 hands!

Such evidence that local people want to see the building restored and brought back into use. I especially love the conversation I had with an 8 year old who told me they walked past the building everyday and felt cheated she didn’t know what was inside – hopefully you will soon!

A huge and massive thank you to the volunteers who helped us make this day a very special one, including from Stirchley Baths Community Stakeholders Group: Sue Jackson, Jess Allan and Brenda Thomas; and from Birmingham Conservation Trust: Julian Cleaver, Louise Deakin, Rachel Hoeshan and Jane Baker.  A big thank you also to Mukesh, local Stirchley resident, who was passing by on his way back from The Coop at 9.30 and offered to help us put the washing line up! He stayed and helped out until lunchtime. Talk about community spirit!

After I have typed up all the comments on the hands, we will be putting them into Stirchley Library – so you will get a chance to see what people have said. Matthew, working for Podnosh, has also collected some great interviews for this site, so watch this space!

Final thank you for today is for the wonderful staff at Stirchley Library who were fabulous hosts (and sorry for all the glitter left on the carpet!)

Great day. A strong message for the Heritage Lottery Fund – this is a project worth supporting. The community certainly do!

Aspirations for the Baths from local clubs, diverse communities, families and future generations

Last week I was at Stirchley Community Centre on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and spoke to many of the parents who bring their children to Arabic lessons about the Stirchley Baths Project.

Mohammed spoke to me about swimming during his days at Dame Elizabeth Cadbury’s and his aspirations to enjoy the building again with his family. –

listen to ‘Mohammed remembers swimming with Dame Cadbury's’ on Audioboo

We gathered some great ideas from both parents and their children about the sorts of events that they might enjoy together; having fun and learning about the history of the Baths at the same time. These included quizzes and ‘spot the historic feature’ treasure hunts around the building. For the older generation, talks would be welcome, with Bengali interpretors on hand. Women only activities were also suggested as a way to involve the local Muslim community in the centre’s programming.

I also had a great chat with Margaret and Joe from Birmingham Karate Club who see the future move to the Baths as a great opportunity to recruit new members to the club and widen their audience further. They have been running the club from Stirchley Community Centre for 6-7 years. Here is a brief history of how the club has grown in the area, and the mix of excitement and apprehension they feel towards the transition from  the Community Centre to the Baths.

listen to ‘Margaret and Joe from Birmingham Karate Club’ on Audioboo

Stirchley Community School lends me their School Council!

Last week I met with the School Council – made up of 8 very bright pupils from years 3-6 attending Stirchley Community School. We talked about the Baths, looked at photographs and they came up with a list of questions they would ask a history expert if they met one (luckily I knew most the answers!)

They would want to ask:

  • How many people visited the Baths?
  • Why did it close?
  • When it was built?
  • How many baths were there?
  • What happens if the floor boards broke if people were dancing on them?
  • Were Germans allowed to visit the Baths during WWII?

They all agreed that seeing the building in its current state is a waste of a building and they  thought it was important to restore it. If they went on a school visit they would like to learn some old fashioned dances, be ‘history detectives’ around the building and see an old bath tub!  What a great 15 minute session!

Thank you to headteacher Mr Clifford for arranging my meeting with the School Council. He is very keen that the school and the Baths work in partnership in the future – including the new school film club and radio station reporting on the Baths project during its restoration period.