Langley swimming baths may be no more but the historic mosaic that hung there has been saved for future generations. Work is ongoing to whittle away the huge wall of bricks that it was still stuck too, but the search is on to find a new suitable home.
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00:00So we're here at Titanium Techniques in Dudley, lovely Dudley and um lads this is a big a big
00:09circle of bricks what's on the other side there that's the magic isn't it. What have we got here
00:14gents? We got we got our lovely mermaid from Langley Baths. Langley Baths the um Art Deco
00:22wasn't it? Langley Baths is that right? Art Deco architecture? Ish. It was initially an open air
00:29baths and they built another one and put a roof on it. The Art Deco one is similar to that. So
00:36it's a I mean it's a lovely building but they built the old whistles and bells aquatic centre
00:42in um Samwell hence Langley Baths sadly closed and no other use was found for the building but
00:51there was this beautiful mosaic and just describe what the mosaic is of them what's on the underside
00:57of here what are we hiding? We have a picture of a mosaic and it's made of glassine type tiles
01:04which were imported from Italy by Romany Mosaics when they existed and it was paid for by Albright
01:10and Wilson. Albright and Wilson a local industrial company also used to have swimming gardens and
01:15swimming trophies there so there's a good historical link yeah and this mosaic was actually made by
01:21pupils of Albright High School. Wow so there's lots of links to the area lots of history how
01:27how many years ago would that have been? 1960 September 1969 yeah it was the was the launch
01:33finished in 69 yeah finished yeah started in 67. It's been made over three years as part of their
01:38CSE coursework and they did it in lessons and in their own time lunchtime break and after school.
01:44So there was a war memorial there and you were hoping to save that but you were told no we you
01:50were given a quote of £65,000 to take that off the wall. So unsympathetically put it on pallets
01:57frozen shrimp on pallets yeah well they couldn't have been learning less unsympathetically than
02:00what they did to it anyway. Yeah so sadly that got ripped down but what so why do you want to say
02:06are you local are you did you used to swim at Langley Baths are you local historians what's
02:10your kind of where's the passion come from for you guys to save it? My three lads learned to
02:15swim there and actually swam there in swimming garlands over the years they're now all in their
02:2030s but my memory is going in the baths with the mum and toddlers swimming class and going in there
02:27in the water with them when they were like five six months old because i couldn't swim at school
02:31i was the last one to learn to swim at school and i wanted my sons to to be proficient at swimming
02:36yeah and they were that good they were swimming in in um swimming garlands for walley wasps.
02:41And were you a Langley swimmer? I was a Langley swimmer before the mosaics went in.
02:47Yeah and you're both passionate about the like on a local history and heritage then
02:51oh and i guess that's a given considering what you're doing yeah well because history is destroyed
02:56left right and center yeah of course yeah well it's disappearing around isn't it gone yeah forever
03:01yeah so there's a lot of work going on here titanium techniques 2001 limited are kindly
03:08offering you cup to tea use of their power facilities and they've made this lovely titanium
03:13band around it so at the minute i mean you had a bit of a shock didn't you because when it came
03:18actually there's a load of bricks just over by my bag over to the your shoulder there you were
03:23basically it was given to you as like a massive five brick deep block of wall wasn't it four
03:30tons four and a half tons four and a half tons yeah yeah so it wasn't just this nice little perfect
03:36so you've basically been having to carefully um whittle the bricks down and get there yeah
03:42and that's where we're at at the minute with the process yeah yeah so where would you like to see
03:47it go then gents what would you like to see happen to it somewhere in pub in public where somebody
03:52can on an outside wall somewhere where it can be viewed by uh generations of swimmers who swam
03:58there and hopefully they're still around the the gents who actually made it yeah where would you
04:04like to go to we need to convince sandwell i think well yeah i i said to you what about the
04:10new aquatic center but you've been told in that massive building that there's not room for it
04:16there is no room for it which is a bit a bit patronizing yeah they have relented and said
04:22um yeah we might be able to find a space for it under certain certain conditions and that's
04:27involved not putting it on an existing wall and so on and so on yeah yeah i'd like to put it to
04:33jason to a wall close to the car park yeah where there's plenty of foot traffic yeah so what we
04:40thought of was a perhaps on outside on a on a on a sloping flint yeah so people can't see it
04:46yeah but then obviously it would need to be protecting the elements yeah doing that i'm
04:51thinking of is by putting resin i mean having a protective resin over it yeah so that the water
04:57runs off and doesn't doesn't crush that crush that to the the mountain has she got a name the
05:01mermaid she's called mermaid yeah so um you know so we're still open to suggestions at this point
05:11we've got other ideas a lot of people said it should go to the black country museum okay yeah
05:14they've been asked uh twice yeah by myself and by the council what did they what was their response
05:19it doesn't fit their profile of what they're collecting they're collecting industrial stuff
05:22from 1960s i thought well this is this is an industrial link to 1960s yeah yeah well paid
05:28for by so the the albright the business he mentioned that funded it albright
05:36is that the giant chemically place we can see from the m5
05:42so so there's the industrial link you would have thought yes you would yeah but it wasn't on there
05:48it wasn't on their agenda you know they basically were putting options into our way yeah we have
05:53other options though we're talking to other people uh there is um a chance heritage trust
05:59around there yeah and they've expressed possible interest but they can't store it anywhere
06:03yeah i said no public storage yeah
06:12so if people want to keep track of developments there's a facebook group you still i believe
06:16there is what's it called
06:20save save the mermaid mountain we'll see that's the one
06:24well gents i know you've um hopefully you've not become too despondent with um responses from
06:30samwell council and black country museum because there's many people including myself that i think
06:36it's a beautiful thing and it's so important to preserve this heritage so thank you for all your
06:40hard work and we look forward to covering it on installation day somewhere yes hopefully hopefully
06:45we'll keep you we'll keep in contact with you yeah and keep you up with progress and thank you
06:50titanium techniques for their part in this as well cheers guys