Swimming pool at former HMS Ganges, Shotley Gate, Suffolk

Summary

Swimming pool, constructed between 1936 and 1937 at former HMS Ganges Royal Naval Training Establishment.

Description

Swimming pool, constructed between 1936 and 1937 at former HMS Ganges Royal Naval Training Establishment.

MATERIALS: The roof over the pool has a slate covering, and corrugated sheeting to the central rooflights. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in English bond and coped in cast-concrete, around a steel frame and reinforced concrete structure.

PLAN: The building is roughly rectangular on plan, with a double-height swimming pool flanked by a single-storey projection that wraps around the east, south and west sides of the building.

EXTERIOR: The double-height swimming pool has a pitched roof gabled to the north and south, with a long raised rooflight, slate covering, and corrugated metal sheeting to the rooflights. The single-storey projections to the east, south and west have a flat roof with glazed box lanterns over each room. The walls are constructed of red brick laid in English bond, and the front (south) and rear (north) gables have tumbled brickwork and cast-concrete copings to their parapets. Each gable end has two projecting stair surrounds and three windows, the central window of which is longer, framed by horizontal bands of cast concrete. The windows are metal framed throughout, and each timber door is composed of three vertical square panels. The front and side entrances have cast-concrete steps to double timber-panelled doors, with a flat cantilevered canopy over; the front entrance also has a three-paned overlight. The rear entrance (to the first-floor spectators’ gallery) has a flight of eight steps flanked by a red-brick plinth wall with cast-concrete coping, leading to a red brick single-storey porch. The east and west elevations of the swimming pool have three-light clerestory windows along their length, and the single-storey projections have a variety of three-light or groups of three metal-framed windows. The east elevation has four large door openings to the former workshops and boiler rooms, three of which retain industrial timber doors with strap hinges manufactured by Charles Collinge of Lambeth and three-paned overlights. The west elevation has a set of double doors at each of its north and south ends.

INTERIOR: Inside the front entrance, an internal lobby has double doors to an entrance hall with a red tiled floor (possibly replaced in the mid-C20), white glazed tiles to dado height, and central double doors on the north wall to the swimming pool, flanked by L-plan stairs to the first-floor spectators’ gallery. The timber doors throughout the interior generally have three vertical panels, the top panel of which is most often glazed. From the east side of the entrance hall, a door leads through former offices to a corridor along the east side of the swimming pool with borrowed lights on its east wall, off the east side of which are a former workshop, two former boiler rooms, and access to the basement under the pool. From the west side of the entrance hall, a door leads to a changing room with glazed-tile walls, and a total of 12 partitioned changing cubicles on the north and south walls, each with glazed-tile partition walls, a glazed metal door stop, and panelled cubicle door; evidence of a bench and wall hooks survives on the back wall of each cubicle. From the north-west corner of the changing room, there is a toilet with glazed-tile walls, access to the swimming pool, and a further suite of two locker rooms and toilets either side of a central shower room off the west side of the swimming pool. The south locker room retains three long frames of changing benches with hooks over, however the timber benches are missing; the north locker room only has one long frame surviving without a top rail or bench. Both toilets retain their glazed tiled walls and cubicle partitions, replete with panelled wooden doors and glazed metal door stops. The central shower room retains its glazed-tile walls and may originally have been two shower rooms; a historic photo shows the west wall of the swimming pool having two doors where there is now one large opening to the shower room.
The swimming pool is rectangular on plan and features a diving area at its north end (no boards remain), a spectator area at the south end, and a spectators’ gallery on the first floor, accessed from the north and south entrances. The exposed steel barrel-vaulted roof structure is supported on corbels over the spectators’ gallery. The pool retains glazed tiles to its floor and retaining walls, and the walkways around the pool retain blue and white mosaic tiling in a chequerboard pattern with margins. The diving boards at the north end of the spectators’ gallery were likely removed around 1976. The south side of the pool has two levels of cast-concrete bench plinths without timber benches, in glazed-tile surrounds. The tubular steel steps in each corner appear to have been replaced with taller handrails in the late C20. The first-floor spectators’ gallery is supported on reinforced concrete brackets over the walkway, and extends almost the entire circumference of the pool, breaking only on the northern wall to allow for the position of the former diving boards, and on the south wall for a bowed supervisors’ box. The two-stepped gallery has a narrow walkway around its perimeter, and tubular curved metal railings to the poolside, with an additional rail at entrance points from the upper walkway. There are two panelled doors on the north wall of the pool and the spectators’ gallery, providing access to storerooms and a rear entrance respectively.

History

Martello Towers were built along the east and south coasts of England at the start of the early C19 in response to the perceived threat posed by the Napoleonic Wars and invasion. Martello Tower L and M were constructed at Shotley Gate between 1808 and 1812, and are shown on the Tithe map of 1839, each within their own field or meadow, owned by the ‘Board of Ordnance’ and let out as pasture. Shotley Battery was constructed between 1862 and 1865 following recommendations by a Royal Commission set up to report on the defences of the United Kingdom, as a result of renewed fears of invasion from France. It was intended to supplement the existing defensive structures of Martello Towers L and M, and the battery was developed throughout the C19 until it became redundant in 1901 and was eventually disarmed in 1911. In 1902 a Royal Naval Hospital was constructed to the east of Martello Tower L and in 1903 the naval training ship HMS Ganges was moored at Shotley.

HMS Ganges, an 84-gun ship was launched in 1821, and attended engagements in the eastern Mediterranean and Pacific, before being stripped of her guns in 1865 at Devonport and fitted out as a training ship for boys. Over the next 30 or so years, she was moored at various locations including Plymouth, Falmouth, Mylor, Sheerness, and in 1899 with 500 boys on board, she was moved to Harwich and soon after Shotley Gate. With the arrival of HMS Ganges off the Suffolk coast work started on constructing a shore establishment, and the first buildings constructed were temporary sick quarters (completed 1903). The Royal Naval Training Establishment (RNTE) Shotley was commissioned on 04 October 1905 for the training of young naval recruits. HMS Ganges herself left Shotley in July 1906 for Chatham leaving her figurehead to remain at Shotley, and in 1927 the establishment was renamed ‘HMS Ganges’ after the training vessel. In 1907 the foremast of HMS Cordelia was erected in the south-east corner of the parade ground, and formed a key part of the boys’ compulsory climbing training (the mast was listed at Grade II in 1989). During the First World War (1914-18), the RNTE was bombed by a German Zeppelin, and during the war the boys and staff there contributed 600 miles of anti-submarine nets to the war effort.

A swimming bath was constructed at RNTE Shotley in 1908 and filled with seawater. A historic photograph of ‘The Bath, Shotley Barracks’ dated 1926, shows the single-storey swimming pool, with an internal balcony on one or both gable ends; this first swimming pool was replaced by a church in 1938. A new swimming pool was constructed at the north end of the parade ground between 1936 and 1937, and was lauded as being the best swimming facilities in East Anglia, though not open to the public. HMS Ganges closed as a boys’ training centre during the Second World War (1939-45) but reopened in October 1945 and continued to expand in the post-war period. The Royal Navy Training Establishment closed in 1976 and training transferred to Cornwall; the pool remained in use until the early C21.

Reasons for Listing

The swimming pool, constructed between 1936 and 1937 at former HMS Ganges Royal Naval Training Establishment, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* as a well-proportioned and well-designed structure, little altered since its completion in 1937;
* for the high proportion of survival of its original plan form;
* for the remarkable survival of a high proportion of its interior fixtures and fittings, including floor and wall tiling, doors, spectator benches and railings, and changing and toilet partitions.

Historic interest:
* as a rare surviving example of a swimming training facility at a Royal Naval training establishment or college;
* for the important role the Royal Naval Training Establishment at HMS Ganges played in the training of young naval recruits, and for the tragic sacrifices those young men made in the conflicts of the C20.

Group value:
* for the historic functional group the swimming pool forms with the listed and unlisted structures of former HMS Ganges, including the main gates and ceremonial mast (each listed at Grade II);
* for the impressive historic group the swimming pool, ceremonial mast and main gates of HMS Ganges form with historic defensive structures on the site, including Martello Tower L and M, and the scheduled remains of Shotley Battery and its subterranean air raid shelters.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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