Through the centuries
A living history
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Photo: Graham Hogg / Geograph CC BY-SA 2.0 1876–77
A company builds for Sheffield
The Sheffield Bath Co Ltd was formed on 24 February 1876 to acquire the existing Glossop Road baths and expand the site. Its ambitious new complex opened in November 1877, bringing first- and second-class swimming baths, bathing facilities and an ornate Turkish bath suite together at an estimated cost of £33,000.
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Photo: Stephen Richards / Geograph CC BY-SA 2.0 1895–1910
The Corporation transforms the site
Sheffield Corporation acquired the baths for £4,000 in the mid-1890s. It rebuilt much of the Victoria Street side, added a women’s swimming bath and created the entrance dated 1898. Arthur Nunweek’s Edwardian Baroque façade on Glossop Road followed in 1908–10.
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Photo: Sheffield City Council, via Victorian Turkish Baths 1913–14
A ritual shared more widely
Women were now admitted to the Turkish baths at set times each week. Of the 10,604 people who used the suite during the year, more than a quarter were women — evidence that the baths had become part of everyday civic life.
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Photo: Sheffield Newspapers Ltd, via Victorian Turkish Baths 1930s–80s
Generations keep the custom alive
In 1933 a Turkish bath still cost 1s 6d and included the attentions of one of four bath attendants. The dry hot rooms reached as high as 195°F. By the mid-1980s, women and men used the baths on different days and admission was £2.70.
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Photo: N Chadwick / Geograph CC BY-SA 2.0 1990–92
Closure — and a campaign to save the baths
The public baths closed in 1990 despite spirited protests. When the building went on sale in 1992, the Council asked bidders to retain the Turkish bath suite and public access. A community bid led by local women bathers was unsuccessful, but helped keep the baths’ future in public view.
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Photo: Simon Cobb / Wikimedia Commons CC0 1.0 2004
Restored as Spa 1877
After the wider building was redeveloped, the Turkish bath suite was carefully restored and reopened on 15 March 2004 as Spa 1877. Original mosaics and glazed brickwork survived alongside new steam rooms, sauna, ice room, plunge pool and relaxation spaces.
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2019–Today
A new chapter begins
Following another closure in 2019, the baths reopened in November 2023 as Turkish Baths 1877. Today, the historic suite once again welcomes Sheffield for bathing sessions, treatments and the familiar progression from heat to cold to rest.
Historical research informed by Malcolm Shifrin’s Victorian Turkish Baths archive.
Experience 149 years of tradition
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