A Turkish Delight: the Hidden Victorian Bathhouse

Hiding down a side-street off busy, bustling Bishopsgate, very near to Liverpool Street Station, you will find this beautiful hidden treasure of a building…

Dwarfed by the modern office blocks around it, it is an old, amazingly ornate Victorian Turkish bathhouse! Here’s a map so that you can get your bearings.

It almost looks like it has been transported here through a portal from another world, so what is it doing here?

Here’s the story…

Baths/Washhouses in Victorian London

The population in Victorian London was expanding extremely rapidly. Between 1815 and 1860, the population of the capital tripled to reach over 3 million. This brought with it many problems, particularly with health and hygiene!

The call for adequate washing facilities culminated in the Baths and Washhouses Act of 1846. This encouraged local authorities to build public baths/washhouses.

As the 19th century drew on, the more well-off residents of Victorian London wanted something a bit more upmarket and luxurious. Enter the fad for Turkish bathhouses.

What exactly is a Turkish Bathhouse?

The concept derives from the Islamic world and Ancient Rome.

They use hot dry air instead of steam. It was seen as a method of cleansing, but it was also noted for its therapeutic qualities.

A customer would enter the first room; heated with the hot, dry air. They would then move to a hotter room before washing with cold water and could then often receive a massage before moving onto the cooling room.

Introduction of Turkish Bathhouses to London

David Urquhart, a diplomat, who had travelled around Turkey, Greece and Moorish Spain, advocated the use of ‘Turkish baths’ (a phrase coined by him) in his book ‘The Pillars of Hercules (1850).

As well as this, he lectured and campaigned on the health benefits of these exotic bathing techniques.

He claimed they could cure (amongst other things) constipation, cholera, alcoholism, dementia and baldness. Urquhart’s vision was for them to be affordable for all classes but in reality they ended up being for the more affluent citizens of the city.

The first Turkish bath was opened in London in 1860 at 5 Bell Street near Marble Arch by Roger Evans, a colleague of Urquhart’s on the Foreign Affairs Committee.

Urquhart himself oversaw the building of many of the Turkish baths including those built at 76 Jermyn street- the ‘finest in Europe’.

Unfortunately the baths at Jermyn Street closed just before the war due to a decline in popularity and were then destroyed during the Second World War by a parachute bomb.

At the height of their popularity there were over 100 Turkish baths in London.

Bishopgate’s Beautiful Bathhouse

There has been a bathhouse of some variety here since 1817.

In 1883 the baths located here were sold to a company called Jones and Co. They then sold it to the Neville family, who owned many other similar baths in London and built the building we have today.

It was designed by G Harold Elphick and opened in February 1895. He modelled his design on the 19th century shrine at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem- see image here.

It may look tiny from the outside but most of it is located underground, having two subterranean floors. It was built to fit between the large buildings that surrounded it at the time. Click here for a photo of it in 1960’s.

Open from 7am-9pm, it catered exclusively for men. Many other baths had separate female and male facilities.

Inside you will have found marble floors and sunken baths and rooms heavily decorated with an Arabian colour scheme, mosaics, stained glass and glistening gold fixtures.

It closed in 1954 and has served a variety of uses since then. In the 1970’s and 80’s it was a Turkish themed club called Gallipoli, complete with Turkish bands and belly dancers.

In 2016 it opened as the events venue and restaurant it is today. It can hold up to 150 people and it looks absolutely stunning inside with lots of the original features and decoration beautifully restored. You can read more about it here.

More of London’s hidden gems below!