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The Memorial Baths

Bridge Street, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire

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As a memorial for the Diamond Jubilee of the reign of Queen Victoria in 1897, it was decided to erect a building containing a public swimming pool and baths, for the many people who then did not have baths in their own homes.

The site was a shabby area of ramshackle workshops in Bridge Street, next to the Town Bridge- so it would be an exercise in both tidying up an eyesore and providing a new facility. John Moulton had proposed that a Technical school be built there, but in 1895 this was rejected in favour of the baths. The school, later to become Fitzmaurice Grammar School, was built in Junction Road instead.

The site was acquired and donated by John Moulton, who also gave £650; Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice gave £450 towards the building. The Baths were made over to the Bradford Urban District Council in 1898.

In a booklet about the town’s celebrations of the jubilee, the printer William Dotesio published in 1897 an artist’s impression of how the building would look. The architect was the town’s surveyor, Sydney Howard, although [Sir] Harold Brakspear had drawn a plan and section. The glazed roof behind the entrance building lit the swimming bath.

A group photograph of the men involved in the demolition and building work. Each man holds one of the tools of their trade: scappling axes for trimming stone, hods for carrying blocks and rubble, pickaxes, hammers and shovels; the man on the left has a plumb line. Behind them, part of the old buildings still stand.

Part of the work was to build a stone wall as an embankment on the river side. The river was low and it was possible to drive a horse and cart into it. The old buildings had been partly demolished.

In this photograph the site has been cleared of buildings, leaving piles of materials which seem to have been sorted, perhaps for recycling

On completion in 1898, the major change from the preliminary sketch was that the chimney and presumably the boiler room had moved from the back of the building to the front and to the left. Standing outside the building in the top photograph are Mrs Heavyside, the Superintendant and her family. The small park or ornamental garden in front had been laid out during the previous year.

The baths were demolished by Bradford Urban District Council in the mid-1960s and a new library was supposed to occupy the site. The gardens had become a car park some years earlier. In 1971 the present swimming pool was built downstream next to the river, but the promised library failed to appear until 1990 when it was built by Wiltshire County Council. Bradford on Avon Museum occupies some space on the upper floor.

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