Victoria Baths Manchester

Summary

An Edwardian municipal swimming baths with stained glass, glazed terracotta, and three separate pools — voted the nation’s favourite BBC Restoration project and now hire-able for productions.

About this location

Victoria Baths opened in 1906 as one of Manchester’s most elaborate municipal bathing facilities, built to designs by Henry Price in an ornate Edwardian oque style. The building is a complex of three separate swimming pools (historically segregated by class and sex), domed rooflight halls, changing galleries, and decorative tile and terracotta throughout. The main first-class male pool is the most spectacular: a 30-metre pool with galleries on three sides, decorative stained glass, glazed terracotta arches, and a hammerbeam roof.

The building closed as a working baths in 1993 and was saved from demolition by a restoration campaign that gained international attention when it won the BBC’s Restoration programme in 2003. It is now managed by a charitable trust for events and heritage purposes, with ongoing restoration funded through event income and grants. The pools are no longer filled, which is actually an asset for film production — the empty pool basins give a distinctive architectural environment without the water management complexity.

Victoria Baths has been used in music video productions, drama sequences, commercial filming, and documentary work. The combination of the ornate building exterior and the drained pool interiors makes it a distinctive Manchester production asset. The restoration trust manages hire directly and is experienced in working with film crews. Fallowfield / Victoria Park location is in south Manchester, 20 minutes from the city centre.