Cally Bathhouse and Cistern, Cally Estate, Girthon, Dumfries and Galloway

Description

This rustic bath house is beside a stream on sloping ground in woodland to the east of the walled garden at Cally Palace Hotel. The bath house is likely to date to the early 19th century or possibly the late 18th century. It is built of mixed stone rubble. The entrance is in the northeast elevation and has a rough tooled ashlar doorway and cast iron pins for a door or iron grille which has been removed. The roof and sides of the building are covered with piled earth and turf.

The interior (seen 2017) is a single room of around 2 x 3 metres with a barrel vaulted ceiling of red brick. The room contains a sunken, lead-lined bath of 180 x 90 centimetres and 67 centimetres deep. The bath is fed by a continuous flow of water via a below-ground cistern/settling tank to the east (rear) of the building, passing into the bath through an overflow pipe. There are two outlet pipes, one above the other, on the downhill side of the bath. The lower pipe runs to a below-ground stopcock valve to the west. The pipework is predominantly of cast iron with some lead sections.

Statement of Interest

The bath house at Cally Estate is a rare surviving example of its building type, designed in a rustic form and deliberately located in a woodland setting for a picturesque effect. It is one of a small number of known survivals of estate buildings with a bath house function in Scotland. The internal sunken bath is itself a rare survival.

The simple rustic design, partially covered with earth and turf, blends in with the surrounding wooded landscape setting. Its modest appearance and functionality is unlikely to have changed significantly since its construction in the late 18th or early 19th century. Its survival helps our understanding of estate landscape improvement during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Age and Rarity

The Cally House estate was set out mainly from the mid-18th to the mid-19th century. It covers around 1000 acres of grounds including water features, walled gardens, bridges, watercourses, ancillary buildings and woodland set out in the informal or 'picturesque' manner. Cally House (LB9854, now Cally Palace Hotel) was first built by Robert Mylne in 1766 for James Murray. After Murray's death in 1799, the estate was left to his son Alexander who carried out a large programme of improvements across the estate after he came of age in 1811. These works included extensive planting, draining and road and canal building.

A precise date for the bath house at Cally has not been possible to determine. It is likely however that it was built as part of improvements to the estate landscape after 1811 or possibly during an earlier period of works. A small rectangular structure appears, at this wooded location, on the 1st Edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed, 1854) and it is referred to as a cistern on the 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey map (revised in 1907).

During the 18th century, new ideas about our relationship with nature and a return to a more natural way of life gathered pace and were expressed through the laying out of grounds and gardens. Landowners placed architectural features, such as temples, icehouses, grottos and water features at carefully considered locations across their estates to enhance the natural landscape. These features were often sited so that they might be best viewed from a distance as part of a picturesque landscape, or sometimes to be visited as part of a circuit tour of the grounds.

Baths and bath houses became popular amongst estate owners as it was believed that bathing in cold water had particularly good health effects. They tended to be sited close to natural springs or streams in order to best capture their pure mineral properties. Walking some distance to take a cold bath would have been considered part of a regular healthy routine.

Cold water baths took a variety of forms reflecting the ideals of contemporary landowners - from open air plunge pools and simple rustic structures to elaborate purpose-built bath houses in the classical style (sometimes featuring two or more rooms). Baths were also integrated into garden grottos as well as cisterns (which stored fresh water underground for use during dry spells).

Few examples of 18th and 19th century estate bath houses are known to survive in Scotland. The bath house and cistern at Cally is a rare surviving example of its building type retaining an integrated cold water bath.

Architectural or Historic Interest

Interior

The interior of the bath house at Cally (seen in 2017) retains a functioning cold water bath, fed from the neighbouring stream. The associated cistern and pipework used to feed water to the bath remains operational. The rare survival of the lead-lined bath is of interest.

Plan form

Bath houses were built in a variety of plan forms, usually comprising one or two rooms, sometimes with a fireplace. The small, half-hidden barrel-vaulted structure at Cally fits in with the informal or picturesque character of the wider designed landscape here. The overflow pipe rejoins the stream below the outfall from the bath, so that in times of spate, the northeastern approach to the bath house would not be flooded.

Technological excellence or innovation, material or design quality

Bath houses were built in a wide variety of styles and range from simple buildings to the complex. Rustic stonework and thatched roofs were materials of choice when an owner wanted to enhance the experience of being within a natural woodland setting.

The piled earth covering the sides and roof of the structure at Cally insulates the building, keeping the temperature of the water cool during warmer periods.

It is unusual for a bath to be lined with lead, with stone or tiles being more common. The poisonous nature of lead was known by the mid-18th century, although water tanks for domestic use (including drinking water) were made out of lead well into the 19th century.

Setting

The bath house is situated within wooded ground 200 metres east of the walled garden at Cally and 470 metres southeast of the Cally Palace Hotel (former Cally House).

The building is not visible from the hotel or any other buildings or structures. The hidden character of the building accords with late 18th century and early 19th century ideas of 'returning to nature' and also would have increased the desire for privacy associated with personal bathing. The distance from the main house indicates that the bath may have been a destination on a route around the grounds.

The bath house is part of an associated group of ancillary estate structures which accord with 18th and 19th century ideals of estate landscape design. Listed buildings associated with the Cally estate include Cally House (LB9854), the Cally Temple (LB9851), Cross Cottage (LB9851), Belvedere Lodge (LB9865) and Cally Mains Farmhouse (LB9852). The cistern is also likely to have functioned as part of early 19th century irrigation and drainage improvements at the Cally estate.

Regional variations

There are no known regional variations.

Close Historical Associations

There are no known associations with a person or event of national importance at present (2017).

External Links

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.