Fancy a bath?

Up early this morning for our Covid jabs. We had opted to walk into town and use the vaccination hub established in the Grafton Shopping Centre. Incredibly well organised. There is no doubt that the NHS, working within local communities has done very well. It’s a pity the test and trace wasn’t handled in the same way.

Anyway on the theme of ‘community provision’, I snapped Cambridge Bath House on the walk home! The coming of the Railway to Cambridge from the mid 1850s meant that a whole new community had emerged to meet the railways’ needs. This area to the east of the City grew rapidly and developed a reputation for radical politics being known as ‘Red Romsey’. The housing was of variable quality of course and most had no specific provision for keeping clean.

The bath house for Cambridge was on the corner of Gwydir Street and was built as late as 1927. There were different baths for men and women, but children just got in the tub with their parents. Apparently, the baths didn’t have taps, so the bather had to call out for an attendant for more water. It cost 4d for a bath (about £2.83 in today’s money), and with this soap and a towel was also provided, but the towels were only 3ft long and 18 inches wide! An extra towel could be hired for another 1d. Remarkably, the Baths did not close until 1977, the year after we first moved to Cambridge. The building is now a community centre.