The shell of the Belfast Hammam before its demolition in 1946

< Photo: Belfast Telegraph

It is easy to see from this photograph that the whole scale of this establishment was too large for its potential clientele even when it was opened in 1860. But four years after Barter built the first Victorian Turkish bath at St Ann's, with Urquhart's Turkish Bath Movement at its most persuasive, it must have been difficult to imagine that less people would become regular bathers that the campaigners had assumed.

After their manager's 1872 comment that  'so very few avail themselves of them, that, in fact, they are not worth keeping open, inasmuch as they are not paying expenses', it is only surprising that they had a lifespan of well over 70 years.

Behind the corrugated iron, workers are erecting scaffolding for the final demolition, while others watch the photographer from the apex of the pediment. By 15 November, the interior of the building had already been demolished.

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

The Working Class Turkish Baths, Donegall Street, Belfast
          

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
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