TV host and designer Kevin McCloud has seen some grand designs in his time on the 26-year-old hit show, but he confessed his mind was blown by Balsall Heath.
The 67-year-old star was in the city ahead of Grand Designs Live, geared up in a hard hat and high vis to go behind the scenes of the beautiful old Moseley Road Baths.
In late 2028, all being well, the Baths will be back up and running and a community hub with swimming pools, a community gym, wellness space and more.
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The baths were first opened in 1907 and countless Brummies learnt to swim in the resplendent location.
For the last two decades, the community has fought tooth and nail to restore it and, after winning a £9.2 million grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, it’s now on the precipice of being full updated and in use once more.
And when it is, McCloud hopes to be among the first to swim, sharing his plans to strip to a stripy Edwardian swimming costume so he can cannonball right into the Gala Pool like the Brummies of yesteryear.
The host climbed ladders and scaffolding to get a view of the old building, learning from volunteers and the Friends of Moseley Road Baths what makes it so special and why they fought for decades to protect and futureproof it.
Kevin is no stranger to Birmingham – he will be back at the NEC from October 2 to October 4 for Grand Designs Live – but he said Balsall Heath had really delighted him.
Kevin explores the old drying racks at Moseley Road Baths(Image: Kirsty Bosley)
“This place blows my mind,” he told BirminghamLive.
“This is a sort of Wes Anderson watery wonderland – or least it was, and it will be again.
“It’s going to be the most exquisite building when it’s finished.”
While a tour of the building revealed special details, like the newly-restored stained glass and the carefully cleaned glazed brickwork, the design specialist was looking ahead to more than just seeing the architectural details of Moseley Road Baths in their full glory.
“I can’t wait to see the water back. I can’t wait to see swimmers in this building!” he said.
Moseley Road Baths are under construction(Image: Kirsty Bosley)
“I can’t wait to see it animated and live. I can’t wait to see all the things they’ve got planned, like a cinema where you’ve got people swimming underneath the screen. So much will be happening at the same time in the same space, with art!
“This is a project for the community here as well as for the city, isn’t it? But it’s so powerful, it’s so big, and it’s going to polish up this beautiful Edwardian gem so well. I think it’s going to become internationally famous. I mean, it already is, actually!”
Kevin is referring to the fact the swimming baths are on the World Monuments Watch list, joining the likes of the terraces of Machu Picchu and temples of Angkor Wat on the list of structures to be protected.
“Birmingham’s motto is ‘Forward’. But we don’t understand where we’re going in this world unless we know where we’ve come from,” Kevin said, after seeing the city’s coat of arms on the front of the Moseley Road Baths building.
“We don’t understand what our world is unless we understand the layers beneath. And if you strip out layers from a place – if you remove everything that is from the 1950s, for example, or that’s Brutalist from the 1980s from a place – you’ve lost a slice of your own history.
“You’ve lost a sense of a story of a place. Each little period is a chapter, and you can start at the beginning if you want, or you can dip in.
“But the important thing is to have those chapters for everybody to be able to access, and for everybody to be able to enjoy.
“No one in this world is going to build a public swimming baths to the same standard, of the same quality, and beauty as this place, ever again. Ever!
“And so to have this not just restored, not just repaired, but also reused and open to the public for everybody to be able to come, whether they’re fully able or whether they are not fully able, from any community, it will be open to everybody.
“And that very democratic principle, that idea of culture and history and heritage being available to everybody, is what everyone who works in culture and heritage wants.”
For more information on Moseley Road Baths and the future plans, read our story here.
