The West Cowes Sea Bathing Company, Queens Road

This stunning building is the West Cowes Sea Bathing Company.

Sea water bathing was very popular in Victorian times, and to capture the market, The West Cowes Sea Bathing Company opened in the 1860s at Shore End, Queens Road. The building still stands, to the left of what is now the New Hollywood Hotel, although the veranda has been demolished.

Plans were concluded about 1868, and a tender went out for a steam engine, boiler and other parts for the proposed baths. A steam pump was sunk into a chamber about 9ft deep so they could get water at all times, including at low tide, to the swimming bath. The bath was warm and could be used in winter as well as summer.

The company was divided into 451 shares which initially performed well. Key shareholders were businessmen of Cowes including Mssrs Damant, Moore, Aktkey, Redfern, May, Dear and several others. By 1905 however, the company was in liquidation and The Baths, which included the house, the rights on the foreshore and the goodwill of the bathing business was auctioned by Marvins, who ‘knocked it down to £570’. All of the fittings including furniture, carpets, feather beds, bed and table linen, were also auctioned and later that year, the bathing equipment was also sold including 14 bathing machines, iron winches, weight machine a 12 ft boat and about 20 dozen towels. The Bathing Company had not been a paying concern, the establishment with hot-water swimming baths was expensive, ‘with costly appurtenances which nobody used or wanted’.

Sea bathing was still popular however, but Cowes was increasingly not welcoming to bathers. A letter by Algernon de Horsey to the County Press in 1905 urges the fellow residents of Cowes to take immediate steps to ‘reinstitute sea-bathing from the existing bathing machines’, otherwise ‘many will stay away who would otherwise be glad to reside at Cowes during the summer for the sake of the bathing’.

Please read more about the history of Cowes buildings with more illustrations on our page Cowes History.