Water Tanks for Penarth Baths

The Penarth Baths building opened in July 1884. The swimming baths were filled with sea water pumped from the Bristol Channel via tanks that were placed above the baths in the field that later became Alexandra Park.

These water tanks in the Park were shown on successive Ordnance Survey maps from the 1900s onwards as reservoirs. A comprehensive article in the Western Mail[1] about "the new Bath-house at Penarth" described in detail the process by which sea water was pumped from the Channel to the tanks and subsequently the baths:

...From the well the water is forced into a reservoir lined with white bricks, and having a holding capacity of 44,000 gallons, which has been formed in the hill behind the building, and considerably above the level of the baths themselves. The water then flows naturally over, and from thence into the precipitating tank. ... From the precipitating tank the water passes to the filter-house and goes through the Atkins Co.'s patent rotating machine disc filters; thence it descends, thoroughly purified, to the baths.

The cupola of the baths building appeared in many of the postcards with seaward-looking views of Alexandra Park. After more than 100 years the baths finally closed at noon on Sunday 18th November 1984[2], and the building was eventually sold for private development.

In 1991 the tanks were filled in and trees were planted over the top. The filter house still exists just inside the Bridgeman Road entrance, at the foot of the slope that leads up to the present day children's playground: "a small single-storey stone building, which used to serve as the filter building for the former baths below the park..."[3]

Sources of information

  1. Western Mail 21st July 1884
  2. Penarth Times 16th November 1984
  3. National Monuments Record of Wales - Alexandra Park