Spa Baths

The Spa Baths, built between 1904 and 1905, is a Grade II listed building located on Ripon Park Street. This structure is primarily utilitarian in design but features an exceptionally elaborate façade. It is constructed from red brick with orange moulded terracotta dressings and has a slate roof. The building is one storey high, with a two-storey central section that leads to a foyer topped with a pyramidally shaped roof. The foyer has an ornamental interior finished with glazed tiles and a glazed clerestory roof.

The front of the building includes a parapet that rises to a central cartouche, flanked by pilasters, with the outer pilasters topped by ball finials. A round-arched doorway with a segment-shaped transom is flanked by pilasters and has round-arched side-lights. There is a porte cochere featuring depressed arches supported by massive piers with diagonally placed buttresses that rise to complex finials. On either side of the entrance, there are mullion and transom windows, with four bays to the east and three to the west; the nearest bays are adorned with segmental pediments in the parapet. Rainwater heads are dated 1904, and there are cast iron downpipes.

The front of the building is covered in exceptionally inventive moulded terracotta ornamentation, which is primarily in the Arts and Crafts style but also includes elements of Art Nouveau. The foundation stone was laid in 1904 to commemorate the tercentenary of King James I's Charter, and the baths were officially opened in 1905 by Princess Henry of Battenberg, accompanied by Princess Ena, who later became the last Queen of Spain.