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September 2009
> Victoria Baths Mascot Brought to Life by Local Sewing Club
Victoria Baths Mascot Brought to Life by Local Sewing Club
A group of ladies who set up a sewing club in Grove Village, Ardwick, were recently commissioned by Manchester’s Victoria Baths to make replica swimming costumes like the one worn by their mascot, Soapy Sami.
The iconic building, winner of the BBC 2’s Restoration programme in 2003, introduced the endearing mascot in 2005 to make their open days more appealing to children. Illustrations of Sami feature on a children's trail of Victoria Baths and are included in school information packs.
Grove Village is the award winning £100 million regeneration project that is being delivered by Harvest Housing Group, MJ Gleeson Group and Nationwide on behalf of Manchester City Council. Since work began on the project in 2003, residents have seen the complete transformation of their neighbourhood, including the opening of a new village centre.
The centre has become a hub for many local people and Grove Village resident, Mrs Mary Darwbrough, set up the sewing club there in 2007. Since then, the group has been involved in making clothes for local residents and neighbourhood events. Upon hearing of their needlecraft skills, Gill Wright, Project Manager at Victoria Baths, approached the group to undertake the Soapy Sami project.
Gill Wright comments:
“We are so pleased that the Grove Village Sewing Club agreed to help us with this project. Visits to the baths are very popular with adults and children of all ages and we wanted to increase the interactive element of the visits for the children. The costumes have helped us achieve just that.”
Mrs Darwbrough added:
“We were very flattered to be approached by Victoria Baths to make the costumes and it is lovely to see the children enjoying them when they visit. It was a bit of a challenge to include the green stripes but the ribbon certainly seems to have done the trick!”
Due to the extensive regeneration work at Grove Village, the area has now become highly sought-after. Where there were once empty properties, there is now a three to nine year waiting list for homes. Over 660 properties have been completely refurbished and now include energy efficient features such as thermal insulation and economical heating systems.
220 high quality new homes for sale have been constructed and sold and over 400 unpopular properties have been demolished. The new neighbourhood design has also seen the introduction of two park areas and a specially designed enclosed games area that are regularly used by local children and for neighbourhood events. The next stage of work at Grove Village will see the introduction of a further 400 new properties for sale.