This has to be one of our most challenging explores yet — easily the best one we’ve done so far! Exploring the abandoned Coventry Baths was an absolute mission.
Huge credit to MOD Dan 2 for these photos — we couldn’t have shown this place like this without her.
Our first attempt goes all the way back to May 2024, when me, Brummy Explores, Jellyfish, That One Explorer, and Ghosty headed out to check the place out. Me, Brummy, and Ghosty jumped straight over while Jelly and That One Explorer kept watch out front as we searched for a way inside Coventry Baths.
We eventually tried the front doors, climbing right in front of security. Safe to say he wasn’t impressed — so we backed off and marked that attempt as a bust.
Attempt number two came in August 2024. Me, Brummy Explores, and That One Explorer returned and climbed over everything we could find, checking every possible entry point. Nothing was safe enough — every option was either too dangerous or a guaranteed injury (or worse), so again we had to call it quits.
As the saying goes, third time lucky. We headed back once more, January 2025, me, Brummy Explores, and MOD Dan 1 & 2 — hoping this would be the time. After climbing around and checking every entrance we could, we finally found an open door. Straight in through a fire exit… and suddenly we were inside the abandoned Coventry Baths, staring out over the bowling green.
Once we got in, we honestly didn’t know where to start. This place is huge — from the Olympic-sized pool to the slides and slipper baths, plus a three-storey sports area, kids’ play zone, and even a restaurant. It was clear this explore would take more than one day.
We returned over the next week, with Bando Hunters, That one Explorer and others digging into the history and making sure we didn’t miss a single part of the site… right up until we were caught in the main swimming pool area by the same security guard who spotted us back in August.
Fair play to him — he finally got us!
🏛 A little history about Coventry Baths
Coventry Central Baths were built after World War II to replace older bathhouses destroyed in the Coventry Blitz. The building opened in 1966, designed as a modern leisure complex with an Olympic-sized pool, two smaller pools, a three-storey sports hall, kids’ play areas, and even a restaurant. Its W-shaped glass roof and sun terraces made it a striking civic landmark.
Before this, the city had older Victorian-era public baths dating back to 1894. These included slipper baths — private bath cubicles for those who didn’t have bathrooms at home. Slipper baths were a huge part of public hygiene in the 19th and early 20th centuries, giving people a safe, private place to bathe.
Over the decades, Coventry Baths became a hub for community sports, swimming lessons, and local competitions. Sadly, like many public leisure complexes, usage declined, and maintenance costs rose. The baths eventually closed in 2020, leaving behind the enormous, abandoned building we explored — a relic of Coventry’s postwar civic pride and social history.