Mayfield Baths

Mayfield Baths was a Victorian washhouse and laundry in Manchester, England that opened in 1857 to serve workers in the surrounding print and textile factories.

[1][2] The building, behind Manchester Piccadilly station in the Cottonopolis district, was of Italianate design and its pools were nearly 20 metres (66 ft) long.

[8] One history of the era describes the design of the first two large public baths as including "ornate Italianate façades, featuring an extensive double storey run of windows and doors with a long arcade coupled with elegant and finely detailed chimneys for the new boilers [for] extensive washing and laundry facilities alongside the public and class segregated pools".

[11] Graham Mottershead, project manager of Salford Archaeology, said that the "sheer pace of change and innovation during the Industrial Revolution means many advancements were not recorded.

Excavations like this help us to learn a great deal about what is arguably the most important period of human history and, in the case of Mayfield, a location that is so very relevant to the heritage of the people of Manchester.