Historic Pools of Britain

Fido’s role in establishing Historic Pools of Britain (HPB) is one of its proudest achievements.

It was thanks to the BBC Restoration series in 2003 that Fido first heard about the campaign to save and restore Victoria Baths. A phone call with an offer of help would lead to a relationship that continues to this day, with Fido carrying out almost all the work it has done for Manchester’s Water Palace on a pro bono basis.

This is also when we first met Gill Wright, then the sole, part-time employee at Victoria Baths and now Victoria Baths’ project development manager. Gill had a vision for a network that would connect and represent all of Britain’s historic pools. Whilst many pools operators and campaigners were achieving great things in their own localities, there was no national recognition of this movement and no collective voice for historic pools.

Working with Gill we could see how to bring to life this vision, to see what could be created and how we could give a shared voice to these pools and the powerful force this could be. This led to the launch of what would be known as Historic Pools of Britain on 30 September 2015, when we also unveiled the distinctive HPB branding created by David Caunce of Imagine in Manchester. National broadcast, print and online media would mark a successful beginning with Gill as spokesperson for HPB throughout.

HPB has become a recognised media authority, but even more rewarding is the difference that is being made by pools connecting with each other. Reflecting upon this, and the number of live restoration projects around the country, on 5 January 2020 a piece in The Guardian described it as being a “’year of hope’ for historic pools” and we’d like to think we’ve played at least a small part in this.

See more of our work here: www.historicpools.org.uk