Forums Forums Wirral History : Chasing the Past Wirral History Birkenhead Public Baths

ROBBO has been sedate!

bryne av baths used to give me the creeps.

Argyle Street Baths

Thanks Bert

Good spot uptoncx.

I know its not Birkenhead public baths but near enough [youtube]sQw2fr87d6g[/youtube]

Thanks again Bert, you weren't a swimming instructor or something by any chance?

no, swim like a brick

Livvy wasn't salt as far as I can remember, nice clear water, if sometimes a bit yellowy. Had a blue tinge to it and I think it was chlorinated but not to a great degree. Used to hire a penny slip as we didn't have a cozzy. Used the hot baths into the 60's when home on leave because the houses didn't have baths in them and it was easier than having a wash down at the sink. The baths were very similar to the Guinea Gap baths on the earlier vid. We spent many happy hours there and used to get chased out by the attendant once our lips were turning blue and we were all shivering through hypothermia.

Missus just informed me that she can remember going to Livvy for a bath in the very late 60's. We didn't come back from Singapore until 1967 so it must have been a little after that. She was staying at my mum's while I sailed back.

well.....i never knew there used to be a baths opposite central station"""

Livy was salt. but they built that hotel in Liverpool by the dock enterance and redirected the water supplied to Livy to heat the hotel,can't remember which tunnel the water was pumped from,the water at Livy was always clean and sparkling even when the kids 6week holidays were up,how many kids that learned to swim in those two pools must have been in the thousands,we used to take the kids from Charing Cross Methodist Church/Dolphin club every week to Livy.

At the back of Livvy was a large green corrugated structure, which I reckon housed the heating apparatus for the water. As kids we used to scrounge in the clinker dumped at the side of it for bits of unburnt coke which we would take home for the home fire. There were green iron railings around this and it had a gate which used to open onto Price Street, just opposite the Shamrock Hotel, or the Shammy as we called it.

There used to be a roller skating rink in Byrne Ave. Don't remember if it was the pool covered over in winter or what, but it was going for a long time. I spend more time on my backside than skating so didn't go there very often for that.