Hoegate Street Baths and Wash Houses

Hoegate Street Baths and Wash Houses opened in 1853 and have reporter Andy Price in a lather. The 1846 Bath and Wash Houses Act encouraged public bathing and washing facilities for use by all members of society. From 1828 until demolition in 1849 to make way for the railway terminus at Plymouth Millbay, Royal Union Baths were among the first in the country and place names Bath Street, Bath Lane and Bath Place survive. Hoegate Street Baths are now apartments.

Owner of the West Hoe Quarry and chair of the South Devon Rail Company, Thomas Gill established the Millbay Soap Works in 1818 producing soap imprinted with the Plymouth coat of arms. Public Health Reforms in Victorian times were led by philanthropists such as William Rathbone of Liverpool with the Liverpool Corporation opening modern public baths in 1829. Rathbone supported Kitty Wilkinson who in 1832 in London offered washing facilities during a cholera epidemic and introduced the use chloride of lime or bleach leading to public health improvements in the slums. Kitty became a baths’ superintendent. Newspaper reports dubbed her the saint of the slums and wash houses grew in popularity.