New plea to save baths as they are put on danger list

NEWCASTLE’S Gibson Street Baths have been placed on the Victorian Society's Top 10 Endangered Buildings List for this year.

- KALI LINDSAY

The baths have been placed on the list by the charity which campaigns for Victorian and Edwardian built heritage.

Gibson Street Baths, opened in 1907, was the fourth such facility built in Newcastle under the 1846 Public Baths and Wash-houses Act and is now one of just three pre-1914 swimming baths still standing in Tyne and Wear, alongside Wallsend and Byker.

Owned by Newcastle City Council, the building now stands empty but local authority bosses say they are looking to put it on the market again soon.

The Victorian Society's President Griff Rhys Jones said: "I have lost count of the number of public bath houses that we see in decline, but people truly love these local amenities. There are passionate groups standing by to save their water pools and services, but here bureaucracy has wound them in a skein of "strings attached".

"Please let the local supporters get to work and raise the funds and find a good new integrated use for what was once a prime example of public concern and welfare and an illustration of Victorian-Edwardian values at their best."