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Architecture
55
COMMISSION
OURING approximately eighty pithead baths in Scotland,1 and about twice that
OURING numbernumber
approximately in the England
in England period eighty
and Wales. and 1919-1939,
The vast majoritypithead Wales. Thewerebathsexecuted
of these the vast Miners'
in in majority Scotland,1 Welfare of these and Commission about were executed twice built that in
what would become the International Style of the thirties, and their planning re-
vised the few available precedents into a design that was efficient in time, mate-
rials, and cost. Two of them, Polkemmet in Lothian and Betteshanger in Kent,
were included in the 1939 Architects' Journal poll2 of the most popular modern
buildings, and many were included in the Pevsner guides to the Buildings of
England.3 i For a full list of confirmed Scottish
pithead baths refer to appendix B.
Thus these buildings are of prime historical importance. Not only are they,
2 Polkemmet was nominated by the writer
as individual buildings, good pieces of modern architecture, they represent one
Anthony Betram in the poll, The Archi-
of the first major attempts to translate the modernist ideals of mass production tects Journal 24 May, 1939.
and standardisation into practice. Too often the modern buildings of the thirties, 3 The new style reached the West riding
especially in Britain, were for the affluent 'enlightened', but the scale of the work first in the pithead baths built by the
Miners' Welfare Commission. They were
of the Miners' Welfare Commission, sanctioned by Government, allowed them
begun about 1930 and are worth record-
to avoid the doom of most modernists in Britain; to be part of a primarily aes- ing as pioneer work in the modern style.
thetic movement, rather than social (ist) reformers. Nichlas Pevsner, The Buildings o/England:
West Riding, Yorkshire.
Prior to 1911, when the first legislation regarding pithead baths was passed,4
4 Section 77, The Coal Mines Act 1911.
no pithead baths had been built in Britain by colliery owners, making Britain lag
5 The pit had to be a certain size; a two
well behind its European neighbours. This new legislation, however, did little to
thirds majority of the miners had to be in
change matters, as it was still the owners who were charged with the responsi- favour and the maintenance costs had to
bility of building them, and only when certain stringent conditions were met.5 be kept below specified minimums.
opposite:
Arniston Colliery Pithead Baths, Lothian
(author)
figure 1
Polkommet Colliery Pithead Baths,
Lothian (mwc Annual Report 1937)
57
figures 2 & 3
Linton and Ellington Pithead Baths,
by the Ashington Coal Company,
1922
(mwc Annual Report 1923)
58
The Mining Industry Act of 1926 was the beginning of the pithead bath pro-
gramme proper. It was passed after the General Strike, but when the coal strike
which had sparked the general strike was continuing, and was Stanley Baldwin's
response to the determination and stubbornness of both the miners and the own-
ers; his 'legislative revenge' for the fiasco of the General Strike. With another Bill
passed at the same time that abolished the maximum length of shift (a bitter pill
for the miners), it nationalised royalties which the owners had been intent on
keeping.10 The money thus raised was used to set up a separate fund for the provi-
sion of pithead baths.
As a result of the increased building programme, the Miners' Welfare Commis-
sion (the mwc) had appointed Sir Patrick Abercrombie as architectural adviser to
the main organising committee. Before starting the main programme of pithead
baths, he developed a three-point strategy: the setting up of a technical unit, a
study of the precedents and the designing of prototypes.
The technical unit was based in the Commission's headquarters in London,
under the control of John Henry Forshaw.11 Under him were two teams of archi-
tects, each made up of a principal and several assistants. The country was divided
between these teams, north and south, and within each team architects were
allocated specific areas and districts. This policy meant that there was a central
pool of design knowledge available to all the architects and overall standards of
design could be checked and maintained. Moreover the clients, who were the dis-
trict sub-committees of the mwc, had the advantage of dealing with one
architect for all the architectural projects in that area, and this architect could have,
in addition to the general pool of knowledge in the technical unit, a more specific
knowledge of his region's particular characteristics. So, despite the fact that every
pithead bath in the country was built to the same standard, with the same fittings,
they have distinctly different characteristics from region to region. The individual
creativity of the architects multiplied and diversified the types of pithead bath that
were produced.
Since there were few precedents in Britain to study, Forshaw and some assist-
ants made a study trip to Europe where they examined French, Belgian and Ger-
man pithead baths and decided on the pros and cons of layout and design. They
came back with a set of priorities for their own buildings : the importance of light-
ing, the provision of lockers, and the placing of the buildings.
The landscaping surrounding the buildings was always important to the mwc.
This did notalways consist of 'rose beds for miners', butwas an important element
in creating new, well designed, collieries which would replace the ugly, dirty ram-
shackle sheds of the Victorian age. Whenever possible, the mwc used the baths to
generate other developments, and occasionally the owners of the yard would give
extra money for additional facilities to be built at the same time as the baths.
The importance of light, preferably natural, was due to the necessity of keep-
ing the bathhouses clean and hygienic; as well as the atmosphere of health and
brightness which it created, important for miners
10 returning from of
For a fuller account the gloom
the of
political
underground work. This emphasis on health was situation
at the behind
base of
thismany modern
Act, refer to Britain
59
60
COMMISSION
figure 4
'L' plan Pithead Bath forms (author)
used this form for cheapness, usually in Scotland where collieries tended to be
much smaller, were perhaps the least interesting of the group as they consisted
of a modern facade with three sheds tacked on behind, as at Polmaise in Fife.
But it was in the final type of layout, the 'L' plan that the mwc architects
proved that they could, despite the rigid conditions that they worked under, cre-
ate classic buildings of the thirties in Britain. The 'L' plan type was normally re-
served for prime sites when the colliery owners were taking the opportunity to
modernise the whole yard, using the bathhouse as the centrepiece. In these de-
velopments they would often give additional finance to the mwc for the build-
ing of the bathhouse, so that other accommodation could be added and the
landscaping made much more comprehensive.
The layout consisted of the two locker rooms set at right angles to each other,
normally with the water tower at the crux and the bathhouse set between them at
the back, linking the two wings. Thus each element is articulated in a three-di-
mensional massing which led to the most successful of the Scottish standard
pithead baths, that at Cardowan colliery in Lanarkshire.13
Cardowan shows most clearly the influence of the Dutch architect W. M.
Dudok. The massing and the brick detailing, along with the external pool in the
landscaping, are all strongly reminiscent of Hilversum Town Hall, and this type
of pithead bath is the prime example of this style in Scotland. For architects work- 13 Subject of an article in the RIAS Quarterly,
ing in such an antagonistic and polarised climate as the thirties coal industry, no.
61
The third change was caused by the introduction of a type of plenum heating
which enabled the locker system to work as part of the general heating system,
again reducing capital and maintenance costs. A single concrete duct was split
partly into three: one part providing the heated air for the general atmosphere,
another for the lockers, and the third being the extract from the atmosphere. The
extract system served both as general air and the lockers, as grilles in the base of
the locker indoors allowed the air to be extracted. As a result of growing experi-
ence, controls were developed to control the air flow capacity and air tempera-
ture which produced savings when the baths were not being used to capacity.
The importance that the mwc gave to heated lockers is indicative of their at-
titude to the whole building. It was not an absolute requirement and it meant that
the buildings cost more money to produce, yet they were of primary importance,
as they contributed to the miners' health. Moreover everything was detailed sym-
pathetically; the provision of seemingly insignificant details (seating, the rail
provided for tying shoelaces, the row of mirrors) show the thoughtfiilness of the
architects for the ultimate users of the buildings. The same approach was shown
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