Inn at the Deep End (former Penarth Baths & Supervisor's Office)

The Inn at the Deep End, formerly Penarth Baths and Supervisor's Office, is a Jacobean style building dating from the 18th century. The main frontage is divided into two distinct parts: a towered entrance block facing the former small pool, and a basilican facade overlooking the former large pool. The building is faced with blue lias stone, with dressings of Bath stone and yellow brick, and red sandstone string courses, all set beneath artificial slate roofs. The octagonal tower features diminishing stages, an ogee dome with leaded glazing, and a swagged frieze. Strapwork panels decorate the area above the first floor. Heavy angle volutes flank a ‘Public Baths’ tablet, which is topped by a segmental pediment and heavy cornice, leading to an Ionic doorpiece with a flying staircase to the double doors. The lower flanking bays have carved pediments featuring urns, swags, and dolphins, and stone mullioned windows (some of which are partly blocked by a modern extension). A similar return bay is present in Bridgeman Road. The right-hand facade has a finely carved pediment featuring a griffin supporting the town arms, with three Ionic pilasters resting on a heavy string course. This facade also features paired oculi with enriched architraves above rectangular windows, and lower flanking bays with pilasters and segmental window surrounds.

Attached to the southwest corner of the baths is the Supervisor’s cottage, a two-storey building constructed with rubble and brick in a simplified version of the same Jacobean style. It incorporates a half-timbered porch.

The entrance hall retains its original boarded and ribbed ceiling. To the rear, the former small pool room features lightweight metal trusses supporting a longitudinal lantern. The former large pool room has been converted into a multi-level bar-restaurant but retains a longitudinal lantern to a boarded roof. This roof is supported by arched girder trusses with fretwork detailing to the spandrels, with the ends of the trusses resting on ironwork volutes to the west wall, and on stone corbels at the impost level to the east wall (ten bays). The red and yellow patterned brickwork walls, formerly glazed, have round arches along the long walls. The east aisle features half arches which abut the rear of the arcades.