The Baby Bathhouse

Neville’s acclaimed architect S Harold Elphick was hailed in publications of the time as a near genius, both The Builder (09.02.1895) and Building News (08.02.1895) praised him for his conceptual designs and intricate planning.

The interior design was lavish in its style, no expense was spared on plush velvet carpets, marbled mosaic floors, walls adorned with hand crafted tiles and decorative faience columns. Turkish Baths were an important part of a modern City Gent’s life in Victorian London; they not only provided services to relax and unwind but also served as a medical aide. The Bathhouse created “an arena in which health, pleasure, culture and curiosity could collide; a mystical world far from the restrictive, Victorian society in which it could be found”.

With the arrival of the fifties, popularity for this kind of leisure and the need for Iodine Liquid Baths and Mercurial Vapour Baths were no longer so great. After a tough 1952 Budget it was deemed foolish to renew the lease on the establishment and by 1954 the Bathhouse stood empty.

Gathering dust, the building was used a storage space for nearly twenty years after its closure, keeping all of its original features in tact. In the 1970s the doors were swung open once more, the Bathhouse enjoying a new lease of life as a restaurant. It has played host to hundreds of diners daily until February 2009.

It is now however that the venue is being restored to its former glory. Opulence, decadence and sumptuous furnishings are the order of the day. The Bathhouse is once more the indulgent City hide away that it once was – we are however giving the Needle Baths a wide berth.