Stirchley Public Baths

Nothing perhaps represents the splendid decay of Stirchley better than this building. It’s a lovely thing that has slowly been falling apart for as long as I can remember. It really does need a bit of love and care and would be beautiful if it was renovated. I often wonder what it looked like in it’s heydey.
There are plans for this building to be turned into a community centre, but I think this may hinge on the success of Tesco building a massive store just down the road, which locals are much opposed to. Depending on how that particular battle plays out, we’ll either see this place restored to (something like) it’s former glory, or else it will continue to slowly rot, which is a crying shame. 1 star for whoever let it get this bad, 5 stars for what it could be — 3 in total!

It does seem a bit odd to give a derelict building 4 stars. Particularly as it appears that the council have let this Grade II listed beauty languish into disrepair. So really it’s 4 stars for the actual building itself and 0 stars for the council.
The baths were built in 1910 and first opened to the public the following year. As far as I’m aware they’ve never been opened since I’ve been in Birmingham, although there was some sort of ‘open day’ for people to look into the derelict building before some planned refurbishment in September last year. Now it seems the funding for the refurb has been put on hold, however, which is a shame.
It’s a beautiful building, with its curved red brick front, and ornate sandstone entrance. It looks quite grand, though not overly fussy, and there aren’t too many buildings in Stirchley that could be called ‘grand’. By and large, Birmingham is not really a city known for its architecture, so it seems a pity to let this gem go to ruin.