Manor Place Baths is a former

public baths Public baths originated when most people in population centers did not have access to private bathing facilities. Though termed "public", they have often been restricted according to gender, religious affiliation, personal membership, and other cr ...

swimming pool A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, paddling pool, or simply pool, is a structure designed to hold water to enable Human swimming, swimming or other leisure activities. Pools can be built into the ground (in-ground pools) or built ...

and

boxing Boxing (also known as "Western boxing" or "pugilism") is a combat sport in which two people, usually wearing protective gloves and other protective equipment such as hand wraps and mouthguards, throw punches at each other for a predetermined ...

venue in Manor Place off

Walworth Road The A215 is an A roads in Great Britain, A road in south London, starting at Elephant and Castle and finishing around Shirley, London, Shirley. It runs through the London Boroughs of London Borough of Lambeth, Lambeth, London Borough of Southw ...

Newington, London Newington is a district of South London, just south of the River Thames, and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It was an ancient parish and the site of the early administration of the county of Surrey. It was the location of the County ...

. The late-19th century Victorian structure, designed by the company of

Edward I'Anson Edward I'Anson (25 July 1812 – 30 January 1888) was an English architect who was president of both the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Surveyors' Institution. He was a leading designer of commercial buildings in the City of Londo ...

, is a grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

. It is a largely symmetrical building, asymmetrically composed from a variety of

Arts and Crafts A handicraft, sometimes more precisely expressed as artisanal handicraft or handmade, is any of a wide variety of types of work where useful and decorative objects are made completely by one’s hand or by using only simple, non-automated re ...

and

Flemish Renaissance The Renaissance in the Low Countries was a cultural period in the Northern Renaissance that took place in around the 16th century in the Low Countries (corresponding to modern-day Belgium, the Netherlands and French Flanders). Culture in the Low C ...

elements. It was built in red brick in

Flemish bond Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and Mortar (masonry), mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called ''Course (architecture), courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall. Bricks ...

with

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

dressings, and features a clock tower and a large bathing hall. A plaque in the main stair hall dates the building to 1895. The building was used by the local population for swimming, bathing and doing laundry. The baths had a first- and second-class pool for men, as well as a pool for women known as the "small swim". Mixed-gender swimming was introduced in 1904. The baths also had 74 individual bathing cubicles (most originally only for men), showers and a laundry room."Manor Place Baths"
Exploring Southwark and discovering its history (archived)"Manor Place"
This Is Elephant and Castle, Elephant and Castle Partnership The first-class pool was 120 ft long and boarded over in winter so that the space could be used for sporting events, concerts and other public meetings. In particular, the baths were a popular venue for both amateur and professional

. Boxing at the baths started in 1908 and boxers who fought bouts there included the

Kray twins Ronald Kray (24 October 193317 March 1995) and Reginald Kray (24 October 19331 October 2000) were identical twin brothers, gangsters and convicted criminals. They were the foremost perpetrators of organised crime in the East End of London, Engl ...

as well as

Ken Buchanan Ken Buchanan Order of the British Empire, MBE (born 28 June 1945) is a Scottish retired professional boxer from Edinburgh and the former List of undisputed boxing champions, undisputed world lightweight champion.Reg Gutteridge, Gutteridge, Reg" ...

Johnny Clark Johnny A Clark (10 September 1947 – 28 December 2020) was a British boxer who won the British and European bantamweight titles in 1973. Career Amateur career As an amateur he represented England in the flyweight division at the 1966 British ...

Henry Cooper Sir Henry Cooper (3 May 19341 May 2011) was a British heavyweight boxer, best remembered internationally for a 1963 fight in which he knocked down a young Cassius Clay before the fight was stopped because of a cut eye from Clay's punches. Coo ...

Cornelius Boza-Edwards Cornelius Boza-Edwards (born Cornelius Bbosa; 27 May 1956) is the former World Boxing Council, WBC Super Featherweight Champion of the World. Born in Kampala, Uganda, he fought in both the super-featherweight and lightweight divisions. He emigra ...

Albert Finch Albert Finch (16 May 1926 – 23 January 2003) was a British boxer from Croydon in South London, who was active from 1945 to 1958. He fought as both a middleweight and light-heavyweight, becoming British middleweight champion in 1950. He was ...

, Dick Richardson and

Terry Spinks Terence "Terry" George Spinks MBE (28 February 1938 – 26 April 2012) was a boxer from Great Britain, who won the gold medal in the flyweight division (– 51 kg) at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia. In the f ...

. In total some 230 boxing shows and 1500 bouts were held at the baths.Catherine Johnston
"Celebration of Old Boxing Club at Manor Place Baths Will Raise Money for Fighters' Families"
Southwark News, 11 April 2018

History

The baths were built by the

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

of Newington to improve public hygiene and health. Construction on the baths began in 1895, and the baths officially opened on 16 March 1898, leading the mayor of New York City to state: "There is no public bathing establishment even approximating this in the United States." The building survived heavy bombing of the area in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It began to fall into disuse as public baths in the decades after the war as most apartments in the area began to have bathrooms installed. It was used by locals to do laundry up until the 1970s. The baths closed as a public facility in 1976 but continued as a boxing venue until a final show in 1978. By 1995 it was in a dangerously poor condition with no viable use. In 1996 it was Grade II-listed and placed on the Buildings at Risk Register by

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

. The building was used by

Southwark London Borough Council Southwark London Borough Council is the local authority for the London Borough of Southwark in Greater London, England. It is a London borough council, one of 32 in the United Kingdom capital of London. History There have previously been a numbe ...

as offices until 2005, when

Tibetan Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

organisation

Kagyu Samye Dzong London Kagyu Samye Dzong London Tibetan Buddhist Centre for World Peace and Health is the London branch of Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland. Kagyu Samye Dzong London is under the direct guidance of Chöje Akong Tulku Rinpoche and Venerable ...

obtained a five-year lease to use the building as a temporary home while their new

Bermondsey Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckham, a ...

location was being renovated. They renovated the building and opened it under the name ''Manor Place Samye Dzong'' on 17 March 2007. The building was used as a meditation centre with regular classes and retreats until 2015. In late 2013, the baths (as well as the adjacent recycling depot) were purchased by Notting Hill Housing to be converted into residential accommodation and commercial space. On 21 April 2018, the Essex Ex-Boxers’ Association staged a boxing reunion at Manor Place Baths to raise funds for the family of boxer Scott Westgarth, who died in February of that year after sustaining injuries in a fight.

References

{{reflist Grade II listed buildings in the London Borough of Southwark Swimming venues in London Swimming pools Defunct boxing venues Boxing venues in the United Kingdom Boxing in London Sports venues completed in 1898