Bramley Baths in Leeds recently received a total of £639,375 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund for work to restore and protect the swimming pool, which was built in 1904.
We are flippin’ our fins and swishing our tails for them. It has been an incredible effort.
Helen, their business manager says: “It will allow us to explore plans to develop our heritage, arts, culture and wellbeing programme, and protect and restore our unique site…. and allow us to develop exciting new activities, and ensure an environmentally sustainable and financially resilient future.” says their business manager.
You can read more about their success and what they intend to do with the funding here
We have been working alongside Bramley Baths for the past 12 years. This has involved various fun projects at the pool – like Mermaid Gala and Mermaid tales. We also run regular creative swimming sessions: Bramley Mermaids Club and holiday courses like Mer-mini’s and Junior Mermaids.
Arts & Culture has been at the heart of this work and is what inspired us to join forces all those years ago.
From the extraordinary idea from I Love West Leeds creators to put an orchestra on a platform in the middle of the pool back in 2012, followed by underwater art exhibitions, Fish and Flicks swim-along cinemas and underwater discos, the art here has been original, creative and so much fun. Have you attended any of the events?
📩 Want to listen to the stories of Bramley Baths?
We explored people’s memories of swimming, of dancing and romantic meetings at the dances at the pool and memories of what the pool means to people.
Click the buttons below to listen to individual stories from our Mermaid tales and Memory Aquarium soundclouds.
We began this collection of stories with two small cultural projects:
“Million Dollar Mermaid,” funded by Arts Council England in 2013. In this project we collected stories from local residents and Bramley elderley Action members, including Jean Major, sadly now deceased. Jean told us about dancing at Bramley Baths every Saturday and how she learnt to swim.
“Mermaid Tales” and “ The Memory Aquarium” supported by the National Heritage Lottery Fund in 2015.
These efforts were further developed with the support of the baths and the incredible team of Jordan Keighley and John Baron, thanks to funding from Leeds Civic Trust.