Poolside Guardian
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The History of Our Campaign
- History of the Baths
- Statement of Significance
- Save Our Pool: Southside Against Closure 2001-2004
- Reports
1. History of the Calder St Baths
New Public Baths: Interesting Ceremony at Govanhill
(The Daily Record and Mail, Sat July 4, 1914)
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The foundation stone of the new baths and wash-house at Calder Street, Govanhill was laid yesterday by Lord Provost Sir Daniel M Stevenson. The building will cover 3,155 square yards and the cost, including the purchase of the site, will be £13k.
Bailie Sloan, convener of the Baths Committee, presided on behalf of the committee. He presented the Lord Provost with a silver trowel. Cllrs Drummond and Sadler placed a casket containing documents etc. in the cavity of the stone which was lowered into position while the 100th psalm was sung.
Following the ceremony, a luncheon was held in the City Chambers at which Bailie Sloan presided. Replying to the toast of his own health, the Lord Provost said that during his 22 years of Corporation experience he had been connected with most of the committees but was most pleased to be associated with the Baths committee.
It was his view that that committee should co-operate with the Health Committee and he hoped the School Board might be induced to make swimming a compulsory part of the curriculum.
Govanhill pool was built just before the start of the First World War in 1914 and represents a beautiful example of early twentieth century civic architecture.
It still retains many original features, including periods tiling. It was intended as a local amenity, with a Steamie for washing and three pools for swimming. Before WWII most of the local tenements lacked proper washing facilities-
On the 3rd of July 1914 the Lord Provost of Glasgow, Sir Daniel Macaulay Stevenson, opened the Govanhill pool in Calder Street, Glasgow.
On the 3rd of July 2001 we will celebrate its anniversary outside the pool in honour of the spirit in which the past Lord Provost was committed to providing services to the socially deprived. A spirit that no longer exists in the Glasgow City Council.
A History on the Lord Provost
Name: Sir Daniel Macaulay Stevenson
Dates: 1851-1944
Notes: Member, Town Council, Glasgow, 1892-1914.
The Stevenson Legacy
Every graduate, student and worker of Glasgow University knows of 'The Stevie', the familiar title for the Stevenson Building which houses the University's indoor sports facilities.
But the abbreviation refers to a man to whom the University owes a great debt of gratitude, as Janine Fitzpatrick has cause to recall.
Daniel Macaulay Stevenson, who was born in 1851, was one of the University's most generous benefactors.
In the Chapel every year he is remembered in the graduation prayers among 'those of later years' in the long line which starts with Bishop William Turnbull.
He came from a wealthy family of coal-exporters, and was named after his radical grandfather who had edited The Liberator and The Free Trade Advocate in the reign of the madly autocratic George III.
As a young man he was a Fabian, but later became a Liberal. His combative spirit often clashed with the more conservative spirits of his contemporaries, and even in his eighties he was an energetic and passionate exponent of the many causes he held dear. For others, he preached the doctrine of the 8-hour-day, but worked a 16-hour-day himself!
He wrote both prose and verse as a hobby, but disliked public speaking. He travelled widely in Europe, and his own meetings with people in other cultures moulded his conviction that education essentially involves confrontation and debate with difference. His visits to Hitler, Mussolini and Hindenberg are unfortunately undocumented, as far as I am aware.
In 1892 he was elected to Glasgow Corporation and held office for 22 years. After a visit to Hamburg, where he admired the electrified trams, he convinced Glasgow to introduce them too. He introduced free libraries for the city and, having made use of them in my childhood and University days, I am grateful to his foresight and good sense. As a canny financier he saved the city thousands of pounds by altering its method of borrowing money ("Woulds't thou were living at this hour!").
He spoke several European languages and was a good communicator. His interests were both global and local, and although he was not a graduate of the University of Glasgow, he endowed the Stevenson Scholarships and Chairs of Spanish and Italian Language and Literature. A £60,000 gift expanded the Engineering Department, reflecting his commitment to technical and industrial education as well as to the arts. His vision was not divided into "two cultures".
As a holder of the Stevenson Scholarship for one year, I had an "Annum mirabile" at the Sorbonne with lodgings at the Cite Universitaire and a teaching post as an Assistante d'Anglais at the Lycee Marie Curie in Sceaux, where Pierre Curie's parents made their young immigrée daughter-in-law Maria Sklodowska Curie so welcome. I was rich, with £500 from Sir Daniel and my salary.
You can still read adverts for the Stevenson Scholarship on the campus notice boards, and then go through the Quads where you may hear snatches of Japanese, Urdu and other languages. Then go down through the Memorial Gates, across to Oakfield Avenue and see the refurbished Stevenson Building, the University's splendid indoor sports facility, and reflect, as I do, how fortunate we are, in this place of international learning, to have had benefactors like Daniel Macaulay Stevenson.
Janine Fitzpatrick is a teacher, writer, translator and poet who has published extensively in Europe and the UK. As an undergraduate she held the Mary Jane Murray Bursary for four years and the Stevenson Scholarship for one year. Return to top
Via the Historic Scotland website
Govanhill Baths, Calder Street, Glasgow
Statement of Significance
Social and historic interest of public pools, baths and washhouses in Glasgow
1. Glasgow Corporation provided a comprehensive array of service for its citizens, from dance halls to hydraulic power on tap to health centres. By building a huge number of public baths, pools and washhouses the Corporation promoted health and hygiene. For many people without hot running water, bath tubs in individual cubicles for personal washing were much needed. Baths and washhouses were often an adjunct to a public library or hall, at Parkhead for instance, providing a clear example of the City’s paternalistic sense of social responsibility. The bath houses often, though not always, incorporated swimming pools for further health and enjoyment. Typically, there would be two or three pools of different sizes within the building, for men, women and children. Around the galleried top-lit pools were the changing cubicles. The building could also contain a washhouse, or steamie, providing hot tubs for washing clothes, and large mangles and driers. The steamie was a great place for women to socialise while doing the family’s laundry, a fact underlined by the play of that name. Many Glaswegians continued to use bathing and laundry facilities up until the mid 20th century and even later.
2. Very few of these buildings now survive in Glasgow, or even Scotland as a whole. Due to maintenance issues and changes in social habits, baths and washhouses have become steadily redundant and latterly derelict. In the 1980s, the pools, though still well-used, were superseded by leisure centres and the problem arose as to what to do with existing buildings. The washhouse was converted to a launderette in 1971 and became a gym. The pools closed in 2001.
Surviving examples of pools, baths and washhouses in Glasgow
3. The Corporation baths were built in imitation of private swimming pools dating from the 1870s. The idea was to bring the health and fitness that the private clubs offered to a wider public. Two of these early private clubs, the Arlington Baths and Western Baths, continue to operate successfully in the city. However, of the many public baths with swimming pools built by the Office of Public Works during the period, only Whitevale Street, Govanhill and Govan are extant, though the Govan baths are now derelict and unlisted. Of the other pools from this period, North Woodside is still in use with its interior having been substantially reconstructed in 1990 behind the façade. Parkhead was on the Buildings at Risk Register until 1995 when it was converted to flats. Whiteinch was also converted, leaving little or nothing of the interiors. Maryhill baths may be reopened as a swimming pool by Glasgow City Council but the original interior has already been removed and replaced.
4. In 2001 when Govanhill Baths closed, they were the only original, substantially unaltered public baths in the city still in use, making them a rare and important survival. Edinburgh City Council still operates five of its remaining traditional public baths and Dundee has one, whereas Glasgow has closed all of its examples.
Architectural significance of Govanhill Baths
5. The baths were designed by the City Surveyor, Alexander Beith McDonald, and built 1912-17 in Edwardian baroque style. The Glasgow volume of Buildings of Scotland (1990) describes the baths as having a ‘lavish interior, substantially unaltered’ (p525). Continued use as originally intended has meant the interior has remained largely intact. The baths were listed at Category B in 1992 in the resurvey of the city.
6. The complex comprises an entrance and hot bath block to Calder Street, faced with red sandstone ashlar, brick and concrete structures housing pools and baths, and the
7. washhouse with chimney to the north. These buildings occupy an entire block in Govanhill and contain three top-lit pools: the main galleried pool, the small pool and the smaller learners’ pool. All three pools are important in their own way but it is the main pool with its cast-iron railed gallery, tiling, changing cubicles and ferro-concrete arched ribs supporting a glazed roof structure that gives the baths their highly distinctive character. The original tiling has been overlaid except at regularly spaced wreath motifs. When discussing the significance and future of the buildings that constitute Govanhill Baths, it is neither useful nor easy to separate the exterior from these interior elements. The EDAW/ Page and Park feasibility study consequently addresses options for change based on the varied disposition of interior spaces.
8. The precocious use of reinforced concrete in a damp environment here (and also at Govan Elder Street) illustrates a willingness to experiment by City Architects that had already shown itself to dramatic effect at Kelvin Hall. The broader the span and the more light that passes through, the more impressive is the architectural effect.
Hierarchy of significance (numbering relates to the engineering report floor plans)
9. The most important element is the largest of the pools (14), followed by the second largest (36), which is similar, with arched reinforced concrete roof trusses, but without a gallery. The third pool (40) is of much lower importance and has a flat ceiling, as do assorted access corridors and a maze of small rooms (41-57) of low significance that could well be rearranged without harm to the character of the building. Of middling importance is the interior of the steamie, (30-35) as it lacks the associated plant and clothes horses, but still has impressive concrete roof trusses. The hot baths at the first floor to Calder Street (100-108) are steel replacements behind functional timber screens below a light steel roof. Of least significance is the chimney, (18) which is a steel replacement of the original brick stalk. Filtration equipment (in rooms 16-21) are not of special importance and in this area a considerable degree of change may be anticipated.
10. The south elevation is most impressive, followed by the north with its row of thermal windows. The east and west elevations are more utilitarian, altered and therefore offer appropriate locations for further intervention.
Condition reports
11. In the structural report by EDAW/Page & Park the building’s condition is said to be fair although repair work is required. This makes it difficult to make poor condition alone the case for demolition. Historic Scotland’s engineer compiled a report on the structure after a site visit in February 2004.
Alternative uses
12. There is a requirement to market the baths to a restoring purchaser, a prerequisite set out in the Memorandum of Guidance for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas (1998), which sets out Government policy in Scotland, before any application could be made to demolish the building: “2.13: Planning authorities which are disposed to grant consent to a proposed demolition may wish to note that in considering the case, Scottish Ministers will wish to be satisfied that every possible attempt has been made to find a suitable alternative use. For example, Scottish Ministers would normally expect to see evidence that the building had been advertised for sale or long lease to a restoring purchaser on the open market for a reasonable period, and at a price reflecting its location and condition, without success before granting demolition consent.”
13. Glasgow City Council commissioned a feasibility study for the complex. Compiled by EDAW and Page & Park Architects, it arrived at the conclusion that ‘complementary swimming’ or a business centre offered the best new uses. Government policy states that the best function for any building is its original intended use. As stated in NPPG 18, Para 21 ‘the fact that a building is obsolete for a short period of time is not in itself justification for unsympathetic change’. However it is necessary also to grasp the opportunities presented by a change of use. Thus a swimming pool in Roubaix, France, is now an art gallery and restaurant, retaining historic filtration plant, and one in Charleroi, Belgium, now incorporates
flats. In either case statues and flats look onto and benefit from the arched spaces over modified pools.
La Piscine, Roubaix
14. There have been no enquiries to Historic Scotland about building repair grant aid though it is perfectly possible that this would be considered due to the building’s (increasing) rarity and cultural significance.
15. All of these issues would have to be taken into consideration in an application for Listed Building Consent. Historic Scotland will be very receptive to an innovative solution that exploits the key internal spaces and secures a future for the complex.
Le Bassin de Natation de Broucheterre, Charleroi, before and after conversion to 33 social housing units, Belgium
Conclusions
16. While the steamie facilities are obviously now redundant, physical preservation and interpretation of their cultural significance would reinforce artistic commemoration in such plays as Tony Roper’s “The Steamie”. As a major part of Glasgow’s cultural heritage, any significant elements of a ‘steamie’ or baths should be conserved in some way. They are a very threatened building type.
17. Govanhill Baths are therefore recognised as an architecturally and historically important part of the city’s history. They are particularly important culturally in that until recently they offered a valued and distinctive facility open to all members of the community. Any proposed reuse of Govanhill Baths must take into account more than simply the preservation of a façade: the spaces given over to the pools are of importance and their reuse must be considered extremely carefully.
Historic Scotland
January 2005 Return to top
Save Our Pool: Southside Against Closure 2001-2004
You can directly browse the press section of the historic website of the Save Our Pool campaign here in this window. Read the reports below to get a sense of the vibrant, effective campaign that was waged. To go to the site directly in a new browser window, click here.