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Grove Lane Swimming Baths, Handsworth

TOPSYTURVEY

TOPSYTURVEY

brum
Image126-1-1.jpg
 
This brings back memories and the cold concrete floors you use to shiver like crazy when you came out thats was in the late 70's
 
We made sure that we learnt to swim a length so we could go for free!
The cool water made us hardly!
Happy days.
I was curious about the turkish baths , but never did try them.
Lovely photo, Topsy
Lu
 
When I went to Birchfield road school I can remember that swimming lessons were compulsory in the 1950s . We were marched up to the bus stop by the Crown & Cushion and the teacher would pay the fair to Grove Lane Baths with tokens witch looked like plastic buttons. and occasionally we used to go to Kingstanding Baths.
 
excellent photo even thou I am no where near that old, the picture looks in mint condition great
 
The picture show the first class bath. This had separate changing rooms. The second class bath next door had no such refinements - you changed behind a communal curtain. For this reason, male and female swimmers used the second class bath on alternate nights. The good old days! willey
 
#6 Smashing picture Carolina. I Personally was terrified of water from a bad experience at Victoria Rd Baths as a child.
 
That's a smashing picture. I was also terrified of water Topsy, I could sort of swim about ten yards, but then I was so exhausted. I used to go occasionally to Grove Lane, but undressing behind those doors used to terrify me more than the water - I had the feeling that as the door did not completely cover the cubicle, everyone could SEE! I never did any better whatever swimming pool I went to until I was 59 - then I had lessons and found out I was doing everything right except the breathing!
 
I wonder if anyone has a photograph of Grove Lane Swimming baths? I don't expect it is there anymore. The changing cubicles were up overlooking the pool. My friends and I used to go regularly in the school holidays. I remember the woman in the ticket booth asking whether we didn't have homes to go to!! There used to be a large tree (well large to me, whose roots I used to stand on whilst waiting for the bus home. I have a feeling it was on the corner of Selborne Road, but I might be getting mixed up here - it was a LONG time ago! About 1960. I wonder if the tree is still there?

I went swimming recently, and is it just me, or do they have the water temperature several times warmer nowadays? I remember Grove Lane's water seemed freezing to me.

Mary
 
Hi Jennyann, Much appreciated, thanks. The photo is just how I remembered it. The girls changed upstairs and boys down.

Mary
 
We used to go to Grove Lane Baths once a week for swimming lessons with school in the early 1950's. But also used to go on a Sunday morning with my sister as well. I can remember standing on the balcony talking to the boys on the diving board, and then into the cafe afterwards for a hot Bovril!
 
Grove Lane Baths opened on the 28th of January 1908 and offered first and second class swimming baths, suites of first and second class private baths for men and women and Turkish bathes designed in the appropriate eastern style.

The first class swimming bath which had a spectator gallery was fitted with a floor and in the winter months used for social purposes.

Phil
 

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Lovely pictures, thanks. I remember the cafe, I used to lust after Horlicks but it was too expensive. My tipple was Oxo. I burnt my tongue and it seemed to sting for months!

Mary
 
Grove Lane Baths Inside.jpgA picture of inside - how I remember those changing rooms. We had bovril plus a packet of cheesettes to dip in.
 
What a lovely picture of the old swimming baths. I only lived in Antrobus Road so the baths were easy to get to.Spent many happy hours with friends swimming and also having the weekly bath as we had no bath in those days. Also the hot drink of cow and gate at the end of our swimming session was something to look forward to.
 
It may be of interest, but there were in fact two pools at Grove Lane, they ran parrelel to one another. The Handsworth Scout association used to use the 2nd pool on Wednesday nights i think. The guy in charge was just known as Potts. 1960s.
 
I remember the 2 pools (with the signs outside "Men" and "Womens") we always used the left side one for public and the right was for scouts/groups etc as far as I remember, but I'm not sure which pool is in the picture. The frontages are still there today.
 
I went to the Grove Lane swimming baths once with a school friend, I have really no idea why as I lived in Perry Barr at the time and she lived in Lozells!

However, just thinking now - I suppose it was half way between us!
I used to go to Kingstanding baths so Grove Lane seemed very old fashioned to me.
 
Had swimming lesson/session first thing Monday morning when I was at HTS. Went a few times after I left school with friends, also went to the Turkish Baths there on numerous occasions very relaxing.
jimbo
 
I went to Grove Lane baths quite a lot during the 1960's and early 70's.
There were indeed two pools at Grove Lane. A public pool with doors on the cubicles. Female changing was upstairs and male changing downstairs. The other pool was known as the 'learner' pool as it was apparently shallower than the main pool and mainly used for swimming lessons I think.
That one had double cubicles - one on either side of a joint entry space with separating walls but no doors.
No upper level for changing. This was generally a single sex pool.
A little bit hazy after all this time but I think I learnt to swim during swimming lessons with my junior school where we walked to the baths in a crocodile from Boulton Road School
The first year pupils only at my senior school (King Edward's Rose Hill) had swimming lessons there too. We walked there unsupervised via either Crick Lane or Lansdowne Road then Holly Road and across the park while the teachers went in a car.
School summer holidays were great. Always hot and sunny (well they seemed to be) .
Friends and I would sometimes spend whole days at the baths - well almost.
We would go in the morning for 'half price' (five old pence I think) spend the whole morning there splashing about and playing if it wasn't too packed - if it was busy and there were queues they limited sessions to half an hour and you had to get out.
We would go home for lunch (or to play in the park) go back in the afternoon for another playabout using our school "free pass". Home for tea, wait the obligatory hour after eating and then go back in the evening using our swimming club pass to get reduced price tickets (threepence).
A chance to have a proper swim as it was usually either empty or very nearly at that time.

Two of my children used the baths for swimming lessons from 1979 until they closed them down in around 1985 when they were replaced by Handsworth Leisure Centre baths.
The friendly atmosphere of the old baths was missed at the new one and swimming lessons at the new baths were never quite the same.
 
Hi

Yep good old HTS can still taste the water as Mr Stokes yelled at us to kick kick
when were learning to Swim. The Good thing about those Baths were our lessons
there started a little later so we could sleep in a little later. Nice walk back via the
Tuck shop Grove lane.

Mike Jenks
 
Hi folks, my father swam like a brick so he played no part in my mother's self-appointed mission to teach me to swim, when I was aged 5 (1954). We lived near Hockley Brook so the venue for my lessons were a bus-ride away either to Monument Rd or (more frequently) Grove Lane Baths (I think they had washing as well as swimming baths).
Our session at Grove Lane was always followed by a cafe treat of Wagonwheel and steaming Oxo and a visit to Handsworth Park.
Was my mother successful in teaching me to swim? Partly, I rarely swim now, my crawl resembles drowing far too closly, I swim in constant fear of being rescued by a well-meaning lifeguard.
Grove Lane was the venue for my school's (Harry Lucas) swimming sessions, most of which were routine, but there was one worthy of note: during one visit a lad, a non-swimmer, for some reason jumped into the deep end, Mr Jones, Art Master at Harry Lucas and the supervisor on that visit, seeing the lad in difficulty immediately jumped in, fully clothed, to assist the lad. Mr Jones had to borrow clothes from the pool staff to make the return journey to school, which always included a visit to the cake shop, Baines, I think, on Hockley Brook to stock up on bread rolls or a cake if you were flushed.
Peg.
Must view!:
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/peg-monkey-cartoons.48101/page-3#post-615229
 
Last edited:
Peg Monkey said:
Hi folks, my father swam like a brick so he played no part in my mother's self-appointed mission to teach me to swim, when I was aged 5 (1954). We lived near Hockley Brook so the venue for my lessons were a bus-ride away either to Monument Rd or (more frequently) Grove Lane Baths (I think they had washing as well as swimming baths).
Our session at Grove Lane was always followed by a cafe treat of Wagonwheel and steaming Oxo and a visit to Handsworth Park.
Was my mother successful in teaching me to swim? Partly, I rarely swim now, my crawl resembles drowing far too closly, I swim in constant fear of being rescued by a well-meaning lifeguard.
Grove Lane was the venue for my school's (Harry Lucas) swimming sessions, most of which were routine, but there was one worthy of note: during one visit a lad, a non-swimmer, for some reason jumped into the deep end, Mr Jones, Art Master at Harry Lucas and the supervisor on that visit, seeing the lad in difficulty immediately jumped in, fully clothed, to assist the lad. Mr Jones had to borrow clothes from the pool staff to make the return journey to school, which always included a visit to the cake shop, Baines, I think, on Hockley Brook to stock up on bread rolls or a cake if you were flushed.
Peg.
Must view!:
https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/index.php?threads/peg-monkey-cartoons.48101/page-3#post-615229
Click to expand...

Hi Peg Monkey,

I recall being taken to Victoria Road swimming baths (Aston), to learn to swim when I was a pupil at St Silas Junior & Infants School. Then went to Harry Lucas & proceeded to get as many free passes as possible so we could go after School (good times). I remember one year (1965 / 1966 I think) at Harry Lucas we had a swimming gala at Grove Lane baths where one of the lads had entered a race, completed one length then thinking he'd won got out to celebrate only to find that he'd got another length to go.

Lozellian.
 
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