Smethwick Baths

Smethwick Baths

Public baths built in 1933, designed by the Smethwick Borough Engineer Roland Fletcher and the architect Chester Button. The building is constructed in reinforced concrete, partly in brick, with flat concrete roofs throughout, and follows the Moderne style of that period.

The plan is organised with a foyer containing a first-floor restaurant, flanked by stair halls and changing rooms, with the swimming pool in a block to the rear. The external elevation to Thimblemill Road is two storeys, featuring steel casement windows with margin panes. A tall central block is the dominant feature, stepping down progressively through two flanking blocks on either side. The central block has a shallow pediment spanning three central bays, which contain tall windows set in reveals above square columns leading to an inner porch. Glazed inner doors are raised within architraves and feature patterned glazing bars with stylised Gothic overlights. This central block is flanked by two bays with stepped parapets, each containing a tall window with a fielded central panel and stepped apron, with raised panels between each window. The two lower blocks flanking these are in brick with concrete parapets and string courses above tall windows with flush concrete architraves, interrupted at first-floor level by bracketed balconies. The outer blocks are plainer, each containing a fielded panel separating double-leaf doors and first-floor windows set in tall concrete architraves. The rear elevation is dominated by tiers of stepped-back clerestories with uPVC windows serving the pool area, and features a tapered brick stack.

The interior retains original glazed doors with brass fittings throughout. The foyer contains pilasters and end columns supporting a ceiling divided into five panels with moulded cornicing. The floor and pilasters are in green terrazzo, with green and gold banding to the capitals decorated with black mosaic pendants. Columns at each end frame entrances to the pool and staircases; the staircases feature wreathed handrails and Art Deco style steel balustrades. The former first-floor café, now known as the Smethwick Suite, retains windows overlooking the pool, moulded cornicing and stepped Art Deco architraves to entrances on each side. The pool itself is dominated by its structural reinforced concrete frame of tall parabolic arches, which begin as square piers and are lit along the centre by a series of octagonal roof lights. Steel balustrades in Art Deco style flank the viewing galleries on each side, whilst the tiled walls beneath contain large blue panels with cream borders and red-tile cornicing, separated by red-tile pilasters decorated with cream and green lozenges. At the nearside end elevation are five stepped lights set in raised architraves, and at the far end stands a blank proscenium arch, all rendered in Art Deco style.

This is an exceptionally fine and complete example of inter-war civic design in Moderne style. The structural form of the pool roof relates closely to contemporary developments in structural concrete in France and Germany. The earliest use of such bold design in concrete was the Royal Horticultural Hall in London of 1927 (Grade II*). Both the internal and external treatment of the pool are clearly based on the latter, which was ultimately derived from Scandinavian timber construction of the early 1920s, Max Berg's 1922 exhibition pavilion at Breslau, and the reinforced concrete work of Hennebique and Freyssinet, notably the demolished Orly airship hangars. This design approach was later employed for other swimming pools including Poplar Baths (1934) and Marshall Street Baths (1937) in London (both Grade II), making its use here exceptionally early. Bold arches in structural concrete were also adopted at the end of the 1930s for other wide-span structures, particularly Air Ministry storage hangars and bus garages.