Sheffield campaigners battle to restore 'magical' Victorian bath house

Birley Spa Bath House is a grade II listed building, built in the Victorian era.

Transcript

00:00So now you're standing here, would you believe that the top of that driveway is the 120 bus,

00:15one of the busiest bus routes in the city. There's housing over there, there's housing

00:20over there, there's a school over there and yet you're here in a magical place.

00:33And the water's currently, well it's still flowing through, you can hear it louder than ever

00:38but due to lack of maintenance as with the rest of the building just after Christmas

00:43we came in one day to discover that the rubber plug, the seal on it had failed

00:49and that had gone into the culvert and it's still there. When we next have any heavy rain

00:56I'm fairly confident the pool will fill up because it did that before

01:02but then as soon as it eases off it will drain back out again. What is fascinating for us is

01:09to hear the noise of it, the force of it, this is it just coming out the ground, we've not had

01:13significant rain for weeks and it's still coming through with some force. So this place has the

01:20potential to be so many things, it's currently classed as a community centre, we see it as a

01:25centre for the community, it's an educational facility for just about every aspect of your life

01:32from relaxation, exercise, learning about nature, learning about history, learning about what's on

01:39your doorstep, learning about a unique grade two Victorian bathhouse in Sheffield.

01:44So in summary what is it that your group want to happen to this building? We want this building to

01:50be renovated and brought back into use so that our community and beyond can make use of it. We believe

01:57this building is nationally significant and it deserves to be put back on the map.