Hotwells Public Baths

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 21/11/2016 and on 08/12/2016

ST 5772, 901-1/41/125

BRISTOL, JACOB'S WELLS ROAD (South West side), Hotwells Public Baths

(Formerly Listed as: JACOB'S WELLS ROAD (West side) Jacob's Well Bathhouse)

04.03.77

II

Former public baths, gymnasium, now dance theatre. Designed 1881, opened 1889. By Josiah Thomas. Red Cattybrook brick with buff terracotta dressings, gable stacks and slate roof. Central swimming pool with lateral blocks and front cross passage. Northern Renaissance Revival style. Single storey; 12 bay front, with 3-storey 5-bay pool gable behind. The front is divided into 3 sections by brick pilasters with terracotta domed octagonal caps, the sections between articulated by octagonal terracotta pilasters with smaller domed tops. The central section has a terracotta panel with HOTWELLS PUBLIC BATHS beneath a raised panel with the City arms, and a pediment with foliate decoration. Central tripartite window, flanking doorways inscribed WOMENS WARM BATHS to the left, and MENS SWIMMING AND WARM BATHS to the right, and outer paired windows, all have shouldered architraves and segmental pediments; the central window has a raised panel between consoles to a segmental pediment. 3 left-hand bays are blind, the 4 to the right have paired windows. Each side block has an end gable with a stack with terracotta panelled and gableted top. The large pool gable has outer brick pilasters to domed caps, and a raised central section to a stepped pedimented gable. 2 lower strings, and a frieze and dentil cornice between the pilasters; the middle section is divided by terracotta strips, with 5 shell-head niches above the cornice, a cornice above them, and a terracotta pediment with foliate decoration and the date of opening, under a ball finial. The sides of the pool have 6 deep semicircular arches under a corbel table. Full length ridge lantern. To the rear right-hand side is a decapitated square chimney with chamfered sides and terracotta bands. INTERIOR: a covered pool with a semicircular steel truss roof carried on steel corbels, side blocks, and boiler house to the left, with cast-iron columns with octagonal bases and moulded capitals. The baths were converted into a dance centre c1980 and comprise a very fine example of their type. HISTORICAL NOTE: the water for the pool came from Jacob's Well on Brandon Hill. (Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 393).

Listing NGR: ST5781272690