Swimming Bath Cheadle Hulme Orphan Schools

The bath is part of building extensions now in progress which comprise additional classrooms and additions to the dining room wing, scheduled for completion in early summer. The swimming bath is contained in a detached building conveniently placed with respect to the main block. The bath is 75 feet long by 25 feet wide, and is being constructed on the most modern principles, with ample lavatory and dressing room accommodation. Two additional classrooms are being added to the school building for the junior pupils presently accommodated in a temporary wooden building. This is to be moved to the playing field and used as a sports pavilion. When the dining room extensions are completed they will give comfortable seating for 300 children. There will also be provided as part of this extension extra dormitory space for about 20 beds. The kitchen and storerooms are also being enlarged and a servants’ hall and a new common room for the teaching staff provided. [Manchester Guardian 27 February 1911 page 8]

REINFORCED CONCRETE SWIMMING BATH AT CHEADLE HULME. The accompanying illustration shows the new swimming bath erected in connection with the Warehousemen and Clerks’ Orphanage at Cheadle Hulme, near Manchester. The bath is built of reinforced concrete, and has been waterproofed with 1 in. cement rendering, mixed with Ceresit, by the use of which it becomes absolutely water-tight. 

The architects are Messrs. W and J. Higginbotham (sic), of Market Street, Manchester, and the work has been carried out by the Combined Concrete Construction Company Ltd., of 25, Strutt Street, Manchester.

Ceresit is a cream-white paste, which dissolves readily in the water used in mixing concrete or cement mortar. By this method the Ceresit is uniformly distributed through the aggregates, thus filling the voids and giving greater density and strength to the concrete and mortar, and rendering it absolutely impervious to water or dampness even when subjected to great hydrostatic pressure. The material protects concrete and cement, and being itself an integral part of the mass, cannot crack or be chipped off; nor does it darken the cement. The beautiful Italian pool in the Country Life Gardens, Garden City, Long Island, is waterproofed with Ceresit, which is being extensively used in Great Britain—for instance (to cite only a few examples) in the construction of Conisborough reservoir; of the engine pit at large woollen mills near Bradford; of the Heeley Swimming Baths, for the Sheffield Corporation, and especially in a Russian Bath therein, where it has prevented the mortar from falling away from the glazed brickwork: at the Golf Club House, Wortley; and in many other important buildings in the United Kingdom. It is supplied by the British Ceresit Waterproofing Co., Ltd., 68, Victoria Street, London, S.W. [Architects and Builders Journal 6 December 1911 page 606]

Reference    Manchester Guardian 27 February 1911 page 8
Reference    Architects and Builders Journal 6 December 1911 page 606