Former Indoor Swimming Pool to Wanstead Infant Orphan Asylum

Indoor swimming pool. Built in about 1880 as part of Wanstead Infant Orphan Asylum.

MATERIALS: London stock brick with red brick dressings and slate roof coverings.

PLAN: a single-storey gabled building with a rectangular plan. Internally the swimming pool is open to the roof and a range of rooms run down the west side of the building, parallel to the pool.

EXTERIOR: the indoor swimming pool is situated opposite the gatekeeper’s lodge on the north side of the former entrance drive to Wanstead Infant Orphan Asylum. It is a single-storey stock brick building, eight bays long and four bays wide, orientated north to south. Facing the entrance drive is the south elevation, which has four segmental-headed timber-framed casement windows with a brick string course running between them at cill level. The west elevation comprises from left to right: a square-headed doorway, two square-headed casement windows; two further doorways; two casements and then the main entrance porch near the south-west corner, which has a segmental-headed doorway containing five-panelled double doors. The windows are metal-framed casements divided into ten subsidiary lights with concrete lintels and cills. The north elevation has three brick buttresses and a window set low down near the north-west corner lighting the basement. There are metal-framed casements to the east elevation flanked by stepped brick buttresses and steps leading down to the basement doorway near the south-east corner. The basement was not inspected but probably originally provided storage and plant for the swimming pool, such as a boiler. The roof has a gablet at the south end but a full gable at the north end. There are two long lines of rooflights near the apex and louvres at each end. A moulded brick cornice runs beneath the eaves and a tall corbelled chimney stack rises above the roof at the south-west corner.

INTERIOR: the swimming pool was originally open to the roof but is currently (2019) covered by a temporary wooden floor structure. There is a steel double-inverted trussed roof. A series of rooms run down the west side of the building. These are entered through five-panelled doors and have parquet floors. Part of the interior, including the north end, has been subdivided off to provide storage space.