Chester City Baths is the Registered Charity dedicated to maintaining the swimming facilities at our grade II listed-building, built in 1901 in central Chester. Originally operated by Chester City Council, the charity took over the operation of the Atlantic and Pacific Pools in 1977 to avoid their closure and demolition. Our mission is to keep them open for many years to come, a task that has been extremely successful for the last 48 years. The charity is run by unpaid volunteers who dedicate their time and energies to ensure the smooth operation of the pools and to support our paid staff.
We have a long history of school, youth, multicultural, leisure and competitive swimming, as well as water polo, sub-aqua diving and triathlon at our home in Union Street, Chester, where a very large portion of Chester’s community has learned to swim. Apart from schools and public swimmers, our main user-groups are Chester Swimming Club, Chester Water-polo Club, Chester Triathlon Club, Chester Sub-Aqua Club, the Noontide Club and many others. These all rely on Chester City Baths to ensure that swimming and other sports continue to flourish in Chester.
Featured in the book ‘Great Lengths; The Historic Indoor Swimming Pools of Britain’, published by English Heritage, our aim is to keep the swimming-baths financially viable, and to avoid closure. To quote English Heritage on describing the demise of Forest Hill Baths, another historic pool, ‘And so the nation’s stock of historic baths steadily dwindles’. We don’t intend to let that happen in Chester.
