Laurie Grove Baths

Laurie Grove Baths

Swimming baths, slipper baths and laundries built between 1895 and 1898 by local architect Thomas Dinwiddy. The building was erected by the vestry board of St Paul's Deptford, exercising powers granted under the Public Baths and Wash-houses Act of 1846. The structure is designed in Jacobean style and comprises red brick with stone dressings and a slate roof.

The main facade is predominantly two storeys arranged across ten bays. The principal architectural feature occupies bays four to six: a projecting gable of two storeys with attics. This central section housed separate entrances for men and women on the ground floor, connected by a ticket office, with the Board Room positioned above the Superintendent's office rising to the attic level. The gable displays the Deptford crest and features octagonal corner turrets. Three cambered mullioned and transomed windows with panels below are set within balustrading adorned with quatrefoils. The first floor incorporates a stone strapwork frieze. Seven curved stone mullions support ten similar transoms above, all containing stained glass. The ground floor has a central window with three curved mullions crowned by a swansneck pediment above the central one, with six stained glass transoms above. Two horseshoe arches with ovolo moulding flank this, behind which are double doors. Either side of the central gable are two-storey wings of three bays each, containing first-class slipper baths on the first floor and second-class slipper baths on the ground floor for men and women respectively. The first floor of each wing has three triple mullioned and transomed windows, while the ground floor displays three double curved windows, each containing four lights with stained glass above. To the left of the entrance is a two-storey bay with a carriage arch on the ground floor and part of the women's first-class slipper baths above, featuring octagonal corner columns, a strapwork frieze, and a triple mullioned and transomed window with horseshoe arch below. The roof is very steeply hipped, finished in slate with cast iron cresting and a weathervane.

A forecourt wall of red brick with black brick decoration and stone coping is attached to the building. This wall is divided into seven downward-curving sections separated by twelve piers, most with brick bases and stone octagonal caps crowned with ball finials. Iron railings with central scrolled panels run between the sections. Four piers positioned opposite the entrances bear the lettering "Men" or "Women" and support scrolled iron gates.

Internally, the two entrance halls are lined with green glazed tile architraves and feature a mahogany kiosk of three panels with three strapwork lights above. The floors are tessellated. The office contains a cast iron Gothic fireplace with octagonal columns and arched decorations. The men's staircase is a well staircase with cast iron scrollwork and mahogany handrail, while the women's staircase follows a dogleg plan with similar decoration.

The large swimming bath has a tiled pool surrounded by walls containing eleven cambered three-light casements. A wooden diagonally boarded ceiling spans above. A cast iron balcony with anthelion motifs runs along one side. The back wall features an architectural ceramic panel with an oval section at the top, scroll and foliate decoration below, swags with putti at the corners of pillars, scrolls, six cambered windows at the top, and three cambered panels below (now containing a late twentieth-century swimming mural). The sides are lined with a series of columns and brackets with cubicles between them. The front end displays four Mogul-style wooden columns and a Jacobean-style staircase with balusters and a chamfered post with finial.

The small swimming bath has tiled walls with four cambered windows on the right-hand side and eight pilasters on the left. The rear contains the laundries, which retain two early washing machines. The first floor accommodates the first-class Ladies Slipper Baths (which served as a gymnasium at the time of survey), the Board Room, and the first-class Men's Slipper Baths. The first-class Ladies Slipper Baths features a fireplace with pilasters and a floral frieze. The Board Room displays a coved cornice with plaster apple and pomegranate mouldings, a strapwork ceiling, pilasters, and three doors with eared architraves. The first-class Men's Slipper Baths retain their original cubicles and baths.