Ladies' day in the cooling room at

Drumsheugh Baths, Old Queensferry Road, Edinburgh

There are many gaps in our current knowledge of the history of the Turkish baths which were formerly part of the facilities of the Drumsheugh Baths Club, and what follows must be seen only as an incomplete outline.

This distinguished and highly successful private swimming club continues today to be owned and run by the same Drumsheugh Baths Company Limited which first opened it in 1882 with Mr William Cameron as its manager.

The company commissioned Sir John James Burnet (1857-1938) to design a building in 'saracenic' style which was duly erected in Old Queensferry Road (now Belford Road) in Dean Village. 

The original building was completely destroyed by fire on the night of Saturday 6 February 1892. The flames spread to a mission hall immediately behind the baths and to the studios of the sculptor, D W Stevenson, which were severely damage by both fire and water.¹

Burnet’s company, Burnet, Son & Campbell, was responsible for reconstructing the baths on the original site at an estimated cost of £6,000. The Moorish style building was to be (as the journal Building news laconicly put it) 'Similar in almost every respect to the old one, but fireproof.'²

The Turkish baths suite on the second floor comprised a cooling room, two hot rooms, plunge pool and dressing room.  Built in brick and stone, with plain blue-green glazed tiles in the hot rooms, and a domed cooling room, the suite was originally lit by antique Turkish lamps.³ As with most of the Scottish Turkish baths, provision was made for the baths to be used by women at certain times during the week.

Some time between 1911 and 1995, the Turkish baths were discontinued and converted into a timber floored gymnasium. Other facilities currently available to members include the Victorian swimming pool (with rings and trapeze over the water), a sauna, and bar.

< Image: Artist unknown.       Oriental obsession: Islamic inspiration in British and American art and architecture, 1500-1920 / John Sweetman. — Cambridge : CUP, 1988. — (Cambridge studies in the history of art)