Turkish Baths

ITS DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION. 23
exceptional
dimensions. A staircase leads to the door
of the lofty and spacious cooling room. This is lighted
from the top, and contains a fireplace, a feature usually
omitted in cooling rooms, and really superfluous, though
adding greatly to cheerfulness of aspect in the winter.
From this frigidarium the bather can return to his
dressing-box by way of a lobby. Thus he makes a
complete round, and does not meet the incoming
bathers on the staircase to the tepidarium.
The latest built elaborate commercial baths in London
are those of Messrs. Nevill
in Northumberland Avenue
(Fig. 2). They were designed by Mr. Robert Walker,
F.R.I.B.A., and comprise both ladies' and gentlemen's
baths, though, as at the old Pompeian Balnea, the
former set are ungallantly cramped into a very small
space. They occupy a corner site, and the entrance to
the gentlemen's bath is formed at the rounded angle. In
the vestibule is the usual cashier's office, and provision
for hats and coats. From the vestibule the combined
cooling and dressing room is entered, after passing the
boot room on the left and the refreshment bar on the
right. Between the boot room and the staircase is the
hairdresser's room. Dwarf wooden partitions divide
the cooling room.
Off a landing on the staircase are a
lavatory and w.c.'s and toilet-table. The staircase leads
to the first floor where are provided
extra couches
and to the bath rooms in the basement. The first floor
is practically a gallery. In the basement are three
hot rooms, the tepidarium being an elegant apartment
elaborately adorned with marbles and rich faience. A
heated smoking room adjoins the second hot room.