Colliery Baths

Coal owners Fletcher Burrows & Co Ltd erected the first purpose built colliery bath house in Britain at Gibfield Colliery in 1913 after a trial of an adapted building at their Howe Bridge Colliery. The colliery closed in 1963 but the building survives as a car repair and maintenance garage. The company had sent a delegation to visit pithead baths in Belgium and France, and their new facilities were based closely on continental practice. There was a large central dressing hall with showers in side aisles. Clothes could be attached to cords and hauled up to the ceiling and secured in place by padlocks. The photograph (a rather dodgy stitch) shows the interior of the building and close examination of the framework in the roof reveals that the pulleys over which the cords ran are still in situ.