At the other end of the Institute and joining it at right angles is a long concrete structure, now a little strained and battered, built in the nineteen-twenties in the Bauhaus style and at that time considered a model of modern architecture. Between the end of this building (called the ‘Ennistone Rooms’) and the end of the garden runs a wall made of yellow glazed bricks, similar to those of the Institute building, and decorated here and there with mauve and blue tiles made up into pictures of dolphins and such. The large rectangle enclosed by these four sides contains the Outdoor Bath, an expanse of natural warm water (26° to 28° Centigrade at all seasons) over which in winter there hangs a thick pall of steam. The Outdoor Bath is said to be the largest swimming-pool in Europe, but this may be an exaggeration. It certainly meets Olympic standards and is frequented, especially in the colder months, by athletes in training. A large clock with a second hand at one end records the speed of the swimmers. Between the brick wall and the pool at the Diana’s Garden end runs a row of sizeable round concrete wells filled with water at a series of temperatures running from 36° to 45° Centigrade. Into each of these wells, which are tiled at the bottom, a stairway descends, and there is a seat round the edge upon which bathers can sit and soak, with their heads a little above the water level. Each well can in this way contain some ten to fifteen people. These hedonistic places of meditation are known as the ‘stewpots’ or just ‘the stews’.
This completes my account of the outside of the Institute. I now move inside. Through a doorway like that of a Renaissance palace, above which in Roman mosaic style is inscribed the Institute motto, Natando Virtus, one gains access to the first public area, the Promenade. This is a large rather shabby place, painted a melancholy green, dotted with tables and chairs where simple refreshments may be obtained, such as tea, lemonade, bars of chocolate, sandwiches, and of course (free of charge) the famous water. The healing stream flows from the brass mouth of a marble lion, but the filled glasses stand upon the counter. No alcohol is served in the Institute. This rule is maintained in spite of periodic protests by younger citizens. It is held that a bar would radically alter the atmosphere of the place, and no doubt this is true. At the end of the Promenade opposite the main door there is access to the changing-rooms. There is also a long observation window looking on to the Outdoor Bath. (Those who want to watch but not to swim pay a reduced entrance fee.) On the right of the Promenade arc situated the Indoor Bath and its facilities and beyond it the Infants’ Pool and the Institute offices. The Indoor Bath replaces (but unfortunately does not copy) its eighteenth-century predecessor. The latter, built of local stone, felicitously (as we see in pictures) imitated the classical through a natural affinity. Our Bath is built of marble, and its architect, who also thought he was imitating the classical, has produced something resembling an indifferent Victorian picture of a bath in a harem. (Some such idea seems to have haunted a local painter commissioned to paint some frescoes of classical scenes, but whose designs were turned down by the Committee.) However, the place, with its double row of columns and marble steps descending into warm clear water has a certain charm, though spoilt by unsightly masses of potted plants. The Indoor Bath used to be hired out for private parties, but after a gathering which was reported in the national newspapers this custom was discontinued.
On the left of the Promenade a door leads to a large and curious octagonal room known as ‘the Baptistry’. This room enshrines the entrance, complete with pseudo-classical pillars and pediment, to the great ‘machinery’ or ‘engine room’ to use the traditional terms, of the installation. These machines, now modernized of course, were the pride of a well-known nineteenth-century engineer, and the huge subterranean area which they occupy used to be on show to the public. Now, however, for a variety of reasons (thought by some who canvass the matter regularly in the Gazette to be sinister) this area is closed off and the way into the Baptistry is marked PRIVATE. The Baptistry is used as a store-room, and the great hot bronze doors, studded with pseudo-nails, which guard the access to (as we say and imagine) the hot spring itself, are locked against all except ‘authorized personnel’. Even to glimpse these doors, through which steam eternally seeps, is a rare treat for citizens managing to peer in from the Promenade. A door on the far side of the Baptistry leads to the Ennistone Rooms, but the public entrance to the Rooms is of course on the street, and not through the Institute.
I turn now to the Ennistone Rooms, the modern (well, not so modern) extension of the Institute. The Rooms, as I explained, are a nineteen-twenties building meeting the Institute at right angles. The ‘nose’ or narrow end of the building, with an austere but handsome public entrance, is on the same street as the Institute, the walls being coterminous. The Rooms stretch back skirting the Outdoor Bath, from which they are separated by a garden and a high beech hedge. (The windows on the Bath side are double-glazed.) Of course a therapeutic use of the waters dates back a long way, perhaps as far as any human occupation of the site. Certainly a ‘cure’ existed at Ennistone in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the eighteenth-century buildings included a wing devoted to private baths and treatment. In the nineteenth century these facilities were housed inside the Institute Building, but were considerably curtailed after the construction of the Indoor Bath. After the first war, when ‘health crazes’ were much in the news, the Town Council decided to invest in a new building and make a greater profit out of science.
The Rooms comprise consulting rooms, offices, massage parlours, mud baths, a gymnasium, a common room, but mainly the enterprise takes its name from the set of luxurious bedrooms with private baths attached. These large bed-sitting rooms, modelled on similar installations in continental spas, were designed for wealthy invalids. They were adorned in an art déco style which contrived to be, at the same time, severe, exotic and insipid. The colour schemes were predominantly black and white, trimmed with beige, orange and light green. There were a lot of triangular mirrors with zigzag edges, and curly tubular steel chairs which swayed alarmingly when sat on. The beds were also made of tubular steel, moving on casters to stand against carved light oak headboards attached to the wall.