Grade II* Listed building. Good example Georgian marine bath. Architect S. P. Cockerell. 1 storey. Slate hipped roof. Parapet. 4 arched windows. Original had sea water reservoir. Interior, much altered. 1809-11, stuccoed walls. Facilities provided here were: swimming baths (2), with dressing rooms; private cold baths; warm and vapour baths; a cupping room and bedrooms for invalids. A seawater reservoir behind the building (now filled in) fed the baths. The baths adjoined the Assembly Rooms.

Event and Historical Information:
In 1781, Tenby Council agreed to lease St Julian's Chapel to a John Jones `Bachelor of Physic? of Haverfordwest `for the sole purpose of Constructing Baths and other Contrivances?. However, this venture was eclipsed by the establishment later built by Sir William Paxton on land by the harbour which he leased from the council in 1805. Paxton was a Carmarthenshire banker and landowner, whose vision and investment in facilities provided the necessary boost to Tenby's development as a seaside resort. The design of the building was produced by S P Cockerell.
The baths were opened in 1810 and were reported to have been fitted out in `superior style? and were part of a development which included the building of adjoining Assembly Room, the Albion Hotel, together with livery stables and coach houses, and a house on St Julian's Street converted to the Globe Inn (the latter opened in 1807). He also remodelled the road linking to the harbour and built two reservoirs to counter any shortage of water that might be experienced by visitors. The baths were reported to have a handsome coffee room? and a `spacious vestibule for servants and attendants to wait in?. In 1829, the presence of the baths was noted as contributing in `of late years to Tenby becoming `a fashionable resort for the benefit of seabathing? (Mogg 1829). After Paxton's death in 1824, the advertisement for letting mentions a billiard-room and offices with the baths but not an assembly room, and a sale advertisement of 1835 mentions a billiard-room with a bowed end facing the sea, presumably therefore in this building. The complex was renovated in 1837-9 for Captain Wells (Borsay 2011). In 1840, the public baths were described as `the most convenient means of bathing, with either for health or pleasure, in all seasons, and at any hour. The water of large reservoirs is changed every tide, by the return of which the different baths are supplied. The premises are inclosed and roofed. One pleasure bath is appropriated to ladies, and another to gentlemen, with dressing rooms to each; and four private cold baths are for single persons. Several warm and vapour baths, with dressing rooms, with an apparatus for heating them, and a cupping-room, are fitted up with the latest improvements. Bedrooms are provided in the bathing-house for invalids. A handsome room for the bathers, their friends and company to assemble in, commands a view of the sea and harbour; it is provided with refreshments, so as to form a fashionable morning lounge? (Nicholson 1840).

Sources include:
Borsay, P and Walton, John K, 2011, Resorts and Ports: European Seaside Towns since 1700, p90-91
Mogg, E, 1829, Paterson's Roads, Being an entirely original and accurate description of all the Direct and Principal Cross Roads in England and Wales, pg113
Nicholson, G, 1840, The Cambrian Traveller's Guide and Pocket Companion, p604

Maritime Officer, RCAHMW, March 2018.