Adelaide City Baths lose ornate 1883 facade, with their history, from the Bastards to Dawn Fraser, wiped in 1969
Adelaide City Baths on King William Road, next to parliament house, lost their 1883 Jacobean-Italianate facade (left) to a modernist frontage in 1941.
Images courtesy State Library of South Australia
The 19th Century façade of the Adelaide City Baths, on King William Road, Adelaide city, was replaced by a modernist front in 1941.
The original Adelaide City Baths were opened in 1861 on King William Road, Adelaide city, next to parliament house, as a benefit from the Thorndon Park reservoir and drainage works. The 40-acre Thorndon Park reservoir was built by Philip Levi and Co. from 1857 and works included a weir across the River Torrens beyond Athelstone, in the eastern Adelaide foothills. The water was piped to supply Adelaide’s 18,000 population via the octagonal valve house at Kent Town on the northeast edge of the city centre.
Adelaide City Baths were owned by the corporation of the City of Adelaide. The baths had separate pools for men and women, and Turkish baths were added a few years after opening. In 1883 the baths were refurbished, with a new two-storey Tarlee-stone building fronting the street, designed by the city surveyor in a mix of Jacobean and Italianate styles.
At the opening of the refurbished building, Adelaide mayor Edward Glandfield said he had been “told the building was in the Elizabethan style and added to the beauties of King William Street but I do not altogether agree with that”.
For their first 78 years, the baths were operated by a family dynasty: by Thomas Bastard until 1883, followed by his son Charles until 1939. The City Baths were an important social institution for Adelaide’s inner city when it supported a large residential population.
A second refurbishment of the baths in 1940 saw them fitted with an Olympic-sized pool and a high diving platform but they were given a bland modernist façade. The baths were less used after the post-World War II population shift to the suburbs and changed recreation patterns.
In the 1950s, Olympic swimming coach Harry Gallagher started managing the baths, bringing with him a young swimmer and future legend. Dawn Fraser trained at the baths for her world record-breaking campaign at the 1956 Olympics. Dawn swam laps with Gallagher, stopwatch in hand, urging her on.
The baths were demolished in 1969 to make way for the Adelaide Festival Centre, with the festival plaza and carpark occupying the baths site.
