Clydebank, Bruce Street, Public Baths & Swimming Pool

Stylised Baroque Public Baths with adjoining 3-bay Swimming Pool to left (currently disused, 2009). Sandstone ashlar. Base course, band course, cornice. Rusticated, key-stoned openings. Public Baths with round-arched entrance openings and segmental arched window openings to ground. Bracketted cills to ground; narrow aprons to upper storey windows. 1960s tiled blank extension to right.

This is a good example of a now rare building type of public baths with an adjoining swimming pool complex. Once a relatively common building type in urban Scotland, public baths have become obsolete and modern leisure centres have largely replaced traditional swimming pools. It is an important streetscape feature and it was purposefully designed to match the style of the earlier, 1902 Municipal Buildings in Dumbarton Roadby the Glasgow architect James Miller. Together, the buildings form the major part of a complete block and form a coherent civic heart in Clydebank Public baths and swimming pools grew in popularity particularly in the second half of the 19th century and most of the surviving ones date from this period; some with intricately decorated interiors. Many people had no access to running water in the home and public health was becoming an increasingly important issue. In 1846, the Act to Encourage the Establishment of Public Baths was passed and the majority of public baths began to be built after this time. Built in the 1930s, this is a relatively late example and probably indicates that there were still a significant number of homes in Clydebank at this time with no bathing facilities. The Bruce Street Baths was designed to replace the nearby Hall Street Baths (now demolished) which were becoming too small. The plans were approved by the Council in 1929 and the baths were opened in 1932. It originally had a variety of facilities, including Turkish Baths, Russian Vapour Baths, a laundry and a massage room. (Historic Scotland)