Manchester swimming baths and washhouse Abandoned Places UK

Manchester Public Baths and Washhouse opened 1921. An early claim to fame is that, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Sunny Lowry from nearby Longsight used it to train to swim the channel, becoming the first British woman to do so in 1933. Nowadays everyone enters through the same old-fashioned gates and wooden doors, but the exterior of the building still displays signs of the social hierarchy of the time, with lettering saying ‘Men’ and ‘Women’ marking where there would once have been separate entrances for the sexes. Inside, the segregation would have continued. Manchester Baths has two pools, one large pool which would have been reserved for men and a smaller pool for women. Unfortunately the building finally closed its doors in feb 2016