Cooling-rooms at Charles Bartholomew's baths

in Birmingham and the City of Bath

Cooling-room at Bartholomew's Birmingham baths

                  
< Drawing from:  An Illustrated guide to the  Turkish baths, medicated and  other baths... / Charles  Bartholomew. — London : Marshall Bros, 1887

                    

Cooling-room at Bartholomew's baths in Bath


Bartholomew created a 'brand image' for his establishments very early on. The supporting posts, the painted glass panels, the gas lights on the wall, and the recliners; all would be instantly recognisable in any of his Turkish baths.

So it is of great interest to compare  the artist's drawing of the Birmingham bath (dating from around the mid-1880s) with a photograph of the cooling-room in the City of Bath establishment (probably taken in the first years of the 20th century).

I am most grateful to Norman Ashfield for the photograph of Bartholomew's Turkish Baths at 2 Edgar Buildings, and for being the first to encourage me in my research into the history of the Victorian Turkish bath.

This page enlarges an image or adds to the information found on the following pages:

Sources for a history. Part 4:  Some early publications

A working class movement

Women and the Victorian Turkish bath. Part 1: introduction

          

This is a page from

Victorian Turkish Baths:

their origin, development,

and gradual decline

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The right of Malcolm Shifrin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988