Haggerston Baths

Haggerston Baths

Public baths built in 1904 by architect A.W.S. Cross for Shoreditch Borough Council. The building is designed in Edwardian Baroque style, constructed in soft red brick laid in English Bond with Portland stone dressings and slate roofs.

The striking south elevation dominates. A central pedimented section of 5 bays is flanked by 3 bay wings set slightly back on each side. To the left, a 4 bay wing is arranged 1:2:1, with the central section set forward and emphasised by sweeping concave quoins. The building rises two storeys with cellars and attics.

The basement features stone quoins and moulded stone entablature with dentil cornice. The central section has an ashlar basement with a round-headed window with eared architrave and bay-leaf dripmould, flanked by men's and women's entrances — each an open pedimented doorway with cartouches bearing lion motifs in relief. These doors are now blocked. The first and fifth bays have cellar openings from pavement level with scrolled keystones and metal grilles, above which are oculi with fancy scrolled architraves. A stone string course marks the division between ground and first floors.

The first floor features a loggia with paired columns distyle in antis, the columns having Ionic capitals. The first and fifth bays are defined by stone quoins abutting pilasters with Ionic capitals flanking the loggia. Windows in the flanking sections have stone architraves incorporating bracketed cills and margin glazing bars with central side-hung openings. Full-height glazed openings with stone architraves are set in a brick screen wall behind the loggia. The central opening has a door beneath a shallow bracketed stone hood. In the tympanum is a round-headed window with eared architrave in stone, flanked by stone relief panels depicting a reclining female figure. Shallow balcony railings frame this level. A cupola with Ionic columns and leaded dome, set on a square tower to the rear of the pediment, is topped with a gilded ship finial.

The flanking wings have sashes with glazing bars and gauged cambered heads with stone keystones, moulded stone cills above plain brick aprons. Each wing entrance is beneath a small 3 by 3 light glazed window with a similar head. Three lead-checked dormers with casements, replacing former sashes, project from each wing roof. Brick stacks with oversailing caps rise above. The similarly detailed wing to the left has some altered brickwork. A tall parapet runs across the central section.

The rear elevation relates to the central pedimented front, constructed in brick with stone dressings and similarly detailed. Five bays sit beneath the pediment. At ground floor, the first, third and fifth bays are ashlar, with the outer two having paired panelled doors beneath stone keyed heads. Three plain stone roundels in shallow relief appear above. The central entrance is now blocked to cill height as a window, beneath a bracketed open pediment which breaks through the stone string course between storeys.

The first floor's central bay features a full-height metal-framed window with eared architrave, divided with an upper light and flanked by a pair of stone pilasters with Ionic capitals. Between these pilasters is a tall recessed brick panel beneath a blind oculus, all sheltered under a segmental pediment containing a rectangular opening with stone architrave, the pediment breaking forward from the main cornice. The first and fifth bays break forward at the upper storey, defined by stone quoins. The second and fourth bays have windows similar to the centre. All have shallow railings. Single-storey additions extend to left and right; that to the west contains a laundry with a glazed north-light roof. A tall brick chimney to the north-west, with banding and stone brackets at the top, completes the composition.

Interior

The building originally contained a single swimming pool, men's and women's slipper baths, an annexed laundry and chimney. The pool, now divided to form a small learning pool at the north end, features an 8 bay steel-framed roof of curved members. Between these members are 3 panelled sections to each side of a longitudinal top-lit glazed roof. The original amphitheatre setting with changing cubicles above was replaced, probably in the 1960s. Slipper baths, replaced in the 1930s, survive in the women's section to the right. Men's baths were removed to create a training area. The former foyer has been reordered, removing the ticket office. A 1980s refurbishment was carried out to the left. Original panelled doors survive on the upper floors. Old Lancashire boilers remain in the basement, now superseded, with a former adjoining workshop.