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The
Argyll Turkish baths
In
1846, Dr Robert James Culverwell, the proprietor of medical baths in
New Broad Street, took a lease on the house at No.10 Argyll Place. Two years later he had
single storey baths built in the adjoining courtyard and these became known as
the Argyll Baths at No.10a.
When Dr Culverwell died in
1852, his widow, Ann Eliza Culverwell, continued running the baths for another
eight or so years. She died in 1863
having sold the baths around three years earlier to a company called
Argyll Baths. They added Turkish baths to the establishment and renamed
it The Argyll Turkish Baths.
By 1883 the baths were owned by
Messrs Jones & Co who also owned the New Broad Street Turkish Baths near Liverpool
Street Station.
Two years
later, in 1885, both sets of baths were refurbished.
Better baths have replaced the now obsolete forms, and the rooms
have been enlarged and thoroughly ventilated, thereby removing all those drawbacks which passed muster in bygone years, but
which are now no longer up to the present scientific standard. As
at New Broad Street, the
baths were open from seven in the morning till nine at night and a
'plain hot-air bath, with shower' cost 3/6d and the 'complete process'
cost 4/-. Also available were perfumed vapour, Russian vapour, Vichy, and sulphur
vapour baths. There were scented showers, together with ascending, descending and spinal douches. We
can’t be absolutely certain, but it seems likely that Jones and Co sold both
their establishments some time between 1886 and 1889, the New Broad Street baths
being purchased by James Forder and Henry Nevill, and these baths coming under
the management of Alexander Paterson.
The
baths were closed in 1902, and demolished to make way for two warehouses.
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Dawn Edmonds,
for information about the Culverwells
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The original page
includes footnotes.
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