Health Hydro (former GWR Medical Fund Baths and Dispensary)

This building, now operating as a health hydro, began life as a dispensary and swimming baths built in 1891 for the Great Western Railway Medical Fund Society. The original complex was designed by JJ Smith of Swindon, with washing baths added in 1898-9, Turkish and Russian baths following in 1904-5, and further additions made in 1911.

Construction and Materials

The buildings are constructed of red brick manufactured at the Great Western Railway's own brickworks, with iron framing supporting the swimming bath roofs—both designed and fabricated at the GWR Works. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate and glass. Interior wall tiles were supplied by the Ruabon Coal and Coke Company, floor tiles by Woolscroft of Hanley, and the stained glass created by T Rice of the GWR works.

Layout

The complex occupies an entire rectangular city block, positioned between Milton Road and Chester Street running east to west, with its principal facade facing Faringdon Road to the north and a rear access lane to the south. The swimming baths and former consulting rooms and dispensary occupy the northern portion of the block, with the former washing and Turkish baths situated to the south-east and a large changing area to the south-west.

External Appearance

The buildings are designed in a restrained Queen Anne style. The Faringdon Road and Milton Road elevations rise to two storeys, whilst those facing Chester Street and the rear lane are single-storey to accommodate the swimming baths.

The main entrance stands centrally within the Faringdon Road elevation, which stretches eleven bays wide arranged in a 5:3:3 rhythm. The central three bays project forward and contain the entrance: panelled double doors beneath a rectangular overlight, framed by a Bath stone Tuscan surround featuring an open pediment on fluted brackets. The tympanum contains a central cartouche inscribed "SWIMMING BATHS / ENTRANCE", surrounded by carved fish and scrolling foliage. This is flanked by cross-framed casement windows, with a three-light window above. The remaining bays contain cross-framed casements, all windows having elliptical heads with scrolling keystones. Beneath alternate windows are inset terracotta panels decorated with various motifs including sea monsters, wyverns and scrolling foliage. The walling is articulated using brick pilasters, with a continuous moulded and dentillated string course at first-floor level. Four small pediments appear at eaves level over bays 2, 4, 7 and 10; the pediment over the entrance bay (7) carries a cartouche dated 1891. Tall chimney stacks are arranged irregularly to serve the various specialist functions within. Bay 5, to the left of the entrance section, houses a second entrance with a Bath stone surround similar to the main entrance, featuring an eared and scrolled two-light overlight with coloured glazing and a shallow pediment containing a scallop shell and foliate motif. To its left stands a small oval window with Bath stone dressings, moulded surround with scrolling keystone and shaped apron below the sill. The far right bay has a similar stone entrance to the former dispensary, but without the overlight. A large metal fire escape extends across the right-hand section of the elevation.

The Milton Road facade follows a similar style and runs sixteen bays in a 3:6:7 arrangement. Bays 2, 4 and 7 are framed and pedimented with three-light windows; the remainder have two-light windows as before, with similar terracotta panels below. The tympana of the two right-hand pediments, positioned over the Turkish baths building, display elaborate terracotta decoration with cartouches inscribed "MFS" (Medical Fund Society) and "AD / 1906" respectively. The doorway in bay 2 resembles those on the main elevation, with an entablature inscribed "WASHING & TURKISH BATHS" and a tympanum containing a blank central cartouche and foliate scrolls. The right-hand seven bays, marking the later upward extension of the dispensary range, lack pediments. All windows here are two-light examples. The entrance doorway to this range matches the dispensary entrance on the main elevation, with coloured glazing above the paired, panelled doors; it originally served as the women's entrance to the dispensary. The rear lane elevation has panelled walling with two-light windows. The Chester Road frontage shows plain walling with buttresses and continuous clerestorey lighting to the large swimming bath, top lighting to the changing rooms, and two tall ventilators serving the bath. The pitched, slate-covered roofs incorporate ventilators for the pools and Turkish baths, with the Turkish baths ventilator positioned beneath a small timber cupola with an ogee roof.

Interior

The complex retains many original internal decorative features, including panelled doors, door furniture, architraves, glazed internal partitions and coloured glazing. Most fireplaces have been removed, with the exception of one in the former committee room and a smaller one in the adjacent offices. Many spaces feature regularly-spaced, elaborate cast-iron ceiling ventilators that drew warm, moist air out to the roof ventilation system.

The main entrance from Faringdon Road, now disused, originally led to the Dispensary on the left and the Swimming Baths on the right. Behind it, the original lobby survives with moulded cornice and ceiling decoration, along with two staircases. To the right, a concrete open-well stair to the swimming baths features elaborate cast-iron balusters and a robust handrail with scroll end. To the left, a lighter stair to the first-floor consulting and dental rooms has a closed string with turned newel and balusters. The entrance formerly serving the Washing and Turkish Baths in Milton Road now functions as the only public entrance. This opens into a hall lined with white-glazed brick (some areas painted), with moulded cornice and a light wrought-iron roof in five bays with glazing along the ridge. Originally housing the washing baths, this space now contains partitioned changing and shower cubicles to the left (with one surviving washing bath), a large late-20th-century metal staircase rising from the centre to the swimming pool changing rooms beyond, and a modern reception desk with partitioned ancillary spaces to the right. A door to the right of the entrance gives access to a stair hall containing an open-string dog-leg stair dating from 1904, with chamfered and stopped newel posts, two square-section balusters per tread, and brackets to the string. This rises to the first-floor suite above the adjacent Turkish baths.

The Turkish baths range is constructed entirely using glazed brick: dark brown for skirtings, with buff and a green line to dado level; moulded glazed-brick dado; and white above. Door and window surrounds are formed from bull-nosed brick with segmental-arched tops. Several painted hand signs marking "WAY OUT" remain on both floors. The ground floor of the Turkish bath suite now houses a large cooling room open to its king-post roof; three hot rooms (one occupying the position of the former Russian bath); and a plunge pool divided lengthways to create a hot bubble pool and cold plunge bath, each half the size of the original plunge. The hot rooms are built in the same glazed brick. The baths suite is approached from a corridor with an extensive glazed internal wall featuring etched glass and marginal glazing, with a curved corner to the southern end. Off this corridor are former consulting rooms and offices. A marble massage table dating from 1904 survives as a bench. The first-floor rooms include the large committee room, its glazed bricks intact but now painted, with a heavy marble fire surround featuring tile inserts and hearth, and an Art Nouveau style grate. The remaining spaces, formerly the women's baths, now serve as offices and include a glazed timber partition with obscured glass.

North of the Turkish baths range lies the former dispensary and consulting rooms, which largely retain their original layout despite some additional lightweight partitioning. The external walls are lined with former consulting rooms, some now used as treatment rooms and two converted to lavatories. The walls have a moulded cornice and are plastered and painted above a brown glazed brick skirting. The central open space housed the partitioned-off dispensary and L-shaped waiting room, both still legible. The roof over the single-storey area is formed from a compound iron Warren truss, with glazing along the ridge and boarding elsewhere. Two windows with coloured glazing are set high in the wall at first-floor level to allow visibility from the first-floor corridor along the Faringdon Road elevation. The remainder of this wall features a late-20th-century mural incorporating these windows and the ground-floor doors below. The dispensary interior retains evidence of hatches to the waiting area and much of its counter, with drawers and sliding cupboard doors. Two pairs of double doors in semi-circular-arched openings give access to the lobbies serving the former men's and women's entrances from Milton Road.

Access to the swimming baths and changing rooms now occurs via the former washing baths, though the original access from the Faringdon Road lobby still exists. The changing rooms are top-lit with king-post roofs and contain mid-20th-century fittings. Link spaces lead to the large pool. This double-height hall houses a pool measuring 110 feet (33.5 metres) long. It has an arched roof formed from seven iron trusses with ovoid piercings, the main members closely resembling railway tracks in profile—designed by the GWR drawing office and manufactured at the GWR works. The ridge is glazed, with continuous clerestory glazing along the long sides. A timber gallery runs around the hall with rows of timber seating. At the north end stands an arcade of three round arches with moulding and keystones and clerestory glazing in the gable above, with rows of raked seating set under the sloping roof. At the south end is a very large round-arched window in a moulded surround with flanking moulded band. This window is filled with delicate coloured and stained glass incorporating a variety of motifs. The gallery, surviving from the original construction, is carried on slender uprights modified in the mid-20th century sometime after the removal of the ranks of poolside changing cubicles that originally lined the pool sides; this area is now finished in terrazzo and tile.

The hall for the smaller pool is constructed identically, with five matching trusses, and has a similar round-arched window, now blind due to later building additions behind. The blocked window is painted with a 1980s mural. The trusses spring from riveted brackets. At the opposite end, the round-arched entrance doorway has moulded capitals carved with fish and foliage. A low wall has been constructed in place of the former poolside cubicles on one side of the pool.