Swimmers snap up tickets for first dip in Manchester’s Victoria Baths in 24 years. When it opened in 1906, Victoria Baths was described as “the most splendid municipal bathing institution in the country” and “a water palace of which every citizen of Manchester can be proud”. The council closed the baths in 1993 because of budget pressures, immediately prompting a crusade to reopen them. Next month the dream will come one step closer to reality when members of the public are invited to bathe in one of the pools for the first time since its closure as part of an ongoing funding drive. [The Guardian]
