Shandon Hydropathic Establishment:
Dunbartonshire, Scotland

Photo from a postcard in the collection of the Victorian Turkish Bath Project

Shandon Hydro was one of the more successful Scottish hydros and opened in 1880, surviving until the building was requisitioned at the start of the second world war in 1939.

The house was originally built as a private house for Robert Napier, the shipbuilder. On his death in 1876, it was purchased by a largely Glasgow-based syndicate who added a swimming pool and the Turkish baths before opening it as a hydro.*

The two pages reproduced below, are taken from a four page 'winter circular' published at the end of the nineteenth century. They show the winter charges and the 'General Regulations'. Strict though these seem, they are less severe than those in several other similar establishments. 'Visitors who formerly wintered in the South of France have found in the Sheltered position of Shandon, on the shores of the Gareloch, equal protection from the severity of the weather with all the comforts and conveniences of Home.'