Sharston Baths

Many years ago, a looming great piece of Modernist architecture cast shadow over the speeding cars of the Sharston section of the M56.

The Sharston Baths, constructed in 1959 (originally known as the Wythenshawe Baths, before the creation of the Forum) were at the epicentre of every Wythenshawe child's life for many years, until they were sadly demolished in the mid-nineties.

The designs for the baths were created in 1955 by City Architect L. C. Howitt (Leonard Cecil Howitt), whom conceived some of Manchester's most notable pieces of Modernist architecture, including the much-celebrated Toast Rack, Manchester Crown Court and Blackley Crematorium; a building I had the mournful duty of visiting as a teen when a friend's father passed-away.

I believe that the architecture of Sharston Baths has been over-looked for many reasons, and if it still stood today would be surely upgraded to a listed building.
Visiting Shartson Baths, passing by the Toast Rack on the bus, making a sad entrance to Blackley Crematorium as teenager - something really shook my ideas of what civic buildings should look like, and this is credit to L. C. Howitt as an architect.

The ominous concrete bones and glassy skin of the architecture stood clear of its surrounding fellow denizen structures; Dutch-roof council houses of the 1930s, the conventionality of Victorian-built "The Sharston" public house.

Models of Sharston Baths proposed design.

This grey monolith did nothing with its presence to deter the young from enjoying almost daily swim-trips, Sharston Baths was at the heart of a community that would otherwise be deprived of such leisure activities.

From the day of its creation, until its untimely demise, the pool offered many out-of-the-ordinary spectacles for the locals to enjoy, including a 1969 visit from what the children were lead to believe was "Flipper" - the spectacular, crime-fighting Dolphin.
The Dolphin in question actually turned-out to be a generic porpoise, given the name of Flipper to bring in the crowds - however, I'm quite certain that the exotic nature of the event would have been enough to generate a stir in the community without the Hollywood spangled Flipper moniker on the posters.

As a side-note, the original Flipper (real name Mitzi) never left her

watery home of the US, and apparently died of a heart attack in 1972.

Sharton Baths was on the precipice of boasting an Olympic Size pool, if it were not for a tile-miscalculation - the concrete frame of the pool had been designed exactly 50 meters in length. However, once tiling of the inside commenced, it slowly became clear that the pool's length was decreasing, leaving it just that bit too short to qualify as "Olympic-size".
I'm sure this caused much confusion and embarrassment for the contractors and council at the time, however, the patrons were patently oblivious.

Pale, skinny prepubescent children would throw themselves with reckless abandon from aloft the 12 foot diving boards, in to the great depths of the deep end. There was austere joy in consuming watery chicken consommé in too-hot-to-hold plastic cups from the vending machines, inhaling the insipid chickeny aroma to counteract the thick stench of council-commissioned chlorine in the air.

Mid-1960s Certificate

I received my first swimming certificate from Sharston Baths (my 5 meters) as did my mother, and thousands of others from all different generations of Wythenshawe.

This is my ode to Sharston Baths (1959 - mid nineteen nineties).

All photos are from the Manchester Local Image Collection.

A huge thank you to The Manchester Modernist Society for their additional information.