Meeting Friday 12th May 2017
President Alan reported on his attendance at an apparently very interesting meeting of District Clubs and Stewart Wilson reported on a successful club outing by rail to Tweedbank, courtesy of the Scotrail Station Adopters scheme.
For this week’s talk former club secretary Jim Kerr chose as his subject the venerable Arlington Baths Club in Glasgow’s West End, of which he himself was a member for over 20 years.
The Arlington Baths Club was founded in 1870 as a peaceful sanctuary for citizens of Glasgow, offering a place of relaxation and recreation in the middle of the busy city. It has always been owned and run by its membership on a non-profit basis and is the oldest institution of its kind in the world. It is housed in an A- listed Victorian Italianate style mansion designed by John Burnet senior, in Arlington Street, Charing Cross.
The club was created within easy walking distance of the great majority of its membership and the tradition emerged that the members would appear first thing in the morning before work and again in the evening before going home.
Much of the attraction of the club lies in the somewhat idiosyncratic Victorian facilities—the suspended rings and trapeze over the swimming pool allowing one to swing out over the water, the historic full-surround showers, the Turkish Suite, the Victorian slipper baths, and finally the Cool Room for post exercise relaxation and newspaper reading.
Jim told of the “Pants Boy” employed to collect up members’ used clothing to be laundered and replaced in the appropriate locker. He was not sure if this facility was still extant!
It might be thought that an institution such as the Arlington Club would have had its day but an ongoing upgrading of the facilities including a new state of the art gym have ensured that it is more popular than ever in this “new Victorian age” of health consciousness.
A lively question and answer session preceded the vote of thanks which was given by Stewart Wilson and warmly supported.
Crawford Gordon.