Brentford Baths

Brentford Baths is a public baths complex built between 1895 and 1896, designed by T Nowell Parr (District Surveyor) for Brentford Urban District Council, with J Barnes acting as the builder. Subsequent additions and alterations have been made.

The entrance elevation and the right return block are constructed from red brick in Flemish bond, featuring ashlar dressings. The remainder of the building uses stock brick in Flemish bond with red brick dressings. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate, and there are red brick chimneys. The front elevation is single-story and consists of four bays, stepped progressively forward from left to right, with a door, window, door, and window arrangement. The entrance bays are narrower, incorporating internal porches with ashlar architraves, imposts, and keyed archivolts. These architraves have ashlar panels above, which are now cemented. The porches contain half-glazed panelled double doors with overlights featuring wooden mullions, transoms, and leaded, coloured glazing. The windows are three-light designs with keyed round arches over the central, taller lights, and have glazing bars; the overlights to the side-lights have coloured, leaded glass. Corniced ashlar architraves with capitalled pilasters and central pediments inscribed 'PUBLIC' 'BATHS' frame the windows. Below each window, the pilasters descend to the plinth and flank a central foundation and opening date stone. Gabled roofs run behind the window bays, incorporating ridge louvres and chimneys. A tall, pedimented roof to the pool area is set back at the centre, featuring a lunette with glazing bars. To the left, a gabled boiler house features a small-pane oculus, stepped eaves, a glazed ridge louvre, and a tapering square chimney with arched recesses on each side.

The two-story, four-bay right return block, believed to have been former council committee rooms, projects on the right-hand side. Its left bay includes a wide, raised, elliptical archway leading to an internal porch with a later addition of a door. Bay 3 slightly projects and features a half-glazed door and fanlight within a keyed archivolt. The ground floor windows are set in pilastered architraves with cornices, while the first floor windows are alternately set below segmental pediments and finialled gables.

Internally, the original doors retain leaded coloured glass. The women’s slipper baths, located at the front right, still contain two original baths. The superintendent's office and the central committee room have an original fireplace with a decorative tile surround. The ticket office has a plainer fireplace alongside cupboards and drawers. The pool has been extended at the deep end, with the original rear wall broken through. Original wooden galleries flank the pool, and braced steel trusses are present. The men’s slipper baths have been converted into a gymnasium. A former laundry is located to the rear left, and the former council office block has decorative cornices and plaster ceilings.