Location: Rochdale Rd
Bacup’s public baths on Rochdale Road were a major civic gift to the town. They were presented to the borough by the Maden family and opened on Saturday 16 April 1892 by J H Maden, MP, with the total cost (including land) reported at around £10,000. The scheme was designed by Mangnall & Littlewoods of Manchester, selected through a competition, which tells you straight away this wasn’t a small add-on building but a statement piece of public infrastructure.
In their heyday, the baths were described as “very complete”, including first and second class swimming baths, men’s and women’s slipper baths, plus Turkish baths, along with engineering works for water, steam services and laundry. It’s a proper snapshot of how industrial towns approached public health: not just somewhere to swim, but a full municipal facility designed around cleanliness, wellbeing and routine.
Architecturally, the building still reads as one of the big anchors on Rochdale Road. Rossendale’s conservation area appraisal notes the former baths (referred to in that document as the Maden Health Centre) as a major landmark, with its tall gable facing the street making it one of the most prominent buildings in the character area. That sense of scale and civic presence is exactly what you’d expect from a late-Victorian public institution built to serve the whole town.
Today, the building is widely known as the Maden Centre, a modern community facility that has kept the historic structure in active use rather than letting it drift into dereliction.
Old Baths
The mosaic commemorates the former public baths, once a vital part of daily life. It reflects ideas of wellbeing, shared facilities and social change.
Animals
Christine Worswick
Wild wet cold and grey
Sheep huddle, horses neigh
Steams flow through walls broken
By cattle pushing gates left open
Snow falls on mud and stone
In conifer wood, a deer alone
Silently moves along tracks of night
Etched in snow, glistening and white.
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Animals
Bacup’s public baths on Rochdale Road were a major civic gift to the town. They were presented to the borough by the Maden family and opened on Saturday 16 April 1892 by J H Maden, MP, with the total cost (including land) reported at around £10,000. The scheme was designed by Mangnall & Littlewoods of Manchester, selected through a competition, which tells you straight away this wasn’t a small add-on building but a statement piece of public infrastructure.
In their heyday, the baths were described as “very complete”, including first and second class swimming baths, men’s and women’s slipper baths, plus Turkish baths, along with engineering works for water, steam services and laundry. It’s a proper snapshot of how industrial towns approached public health: not just somewhere to swim, but a full municipal facility designed around cleanliness, wellbeing and routine.
Architecturally, the building still reads as one of the big anchors on Rochdale Road. Rossendale’s conservation area appraisal notes the former baths (referred to in that document as the Maden Health Centre) as a major landmark, with its tall gable facing the street making it one of the most prominent buildings in the character area. That sense of scale and civic presence is exactly what you’d expect from a late-Victorian public institution built to serve the whole town.
Today, the building is widely known as the Maden Centre, a modern community facility that has kept the historic structure in active use rather than letting it drift into dereliction.
