Community group looking for new home for saved Langley Baths mosaic
The hunt is on for a new home for a beloved mosaic saved from Langley Swimming Baths before it was demolished.
Sandwell Council promised to save the mermaid mosaic after confirming another larger mosaic mural could not be saved due to being embedded in a wall.
The mosaics, originally titled Poseidon’s Kingdom, were created by pupils from Albright Boys School as part of a school project in Mr Frost’s art class in the late 1960s.
Sandwell Council has now formally handed over the mermaid mosaic to the Save Albright’s Mermaid Mosaic (SAMM) Community Group, which is searching for a permanent home to display it.
The council’s demolition contractor, AR Demolition, met the transport costs as part of its social value contribution to the community, moving the mosaic from the former swimming centre site to temporary storage which is being provided by Titanium Techniques in Dudley.
A joint statement has been issued by members of the SAMM Community Group – Ann and Ray Staniland, Clive Heywood, Keith Price, Nyree O’Connor and Danny Hulse.
They said: “The SAMM Community Group would like to thank AR Demolition for their help in saving the Mermaid Window Mosaic and agreeing to deliver it free of charge to Titanium Techniques, who have agreed to store the mosaic while the group remove it from the piece of wall it is enclosed in. We are grateful also to Sandwell Council for agreeing to ‘gift’ the mosaic to the community group.
“The mosaic is the only remaining part of Langley Baths and provides a link to local industrial heritage from the 1960s when pupils from Albright Boys School, with materials provided by the chemical company, Albright and Wilson, were able to make this mosaic. Unfortunately, the community group were unable to save the much larger Poseidon’s Kingdom wall mosaic.
“We are still looking for a final location for the mosaic and would like to hear from any companies interested in displaying the preserved mosaic.
“The community group now needs to raise funds to continue their efforts to preserve this mosaic and would be grateful if there is a local company out there who could sponsor a skip for £200.”
Anyone interested in displaying the mosaic or keen to support the group’s efforts to preserve it can email mermaidmosaiclangley@gmail.com to contact the group.
Councillor Suzanne Hartwell, Sandwell Council’s Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Community, said: “Generations of swimmers will have seen the mermaid at Langley Baths over the years and we wanted to help the community group save this mosaic and preserve a part of Langley’s history.”
The 1930s-built Langley Baths, known in more recent years as Langley Swimming Centre, closed in summer 2023, with customers and clubs transferring to the new state-of-the-art Sandwell Aquatics Centre as part of planned investment in new, modern leisure facilities for the area. In its first year of opening, Sandwell Aquatics Centre has proved extremely popular, attracting an average 16,576 visits a week.
Sandwell Council investigated whether the larger Albright mural at the centre could also be saved – but confirmed this was not possible as the mural would have been prohibitively expensive and difficult to remove and preserve. The council took high-quality images of this mural and a grid referenced digital copy for historic record.
