A bit of history<\/strong> (thanks to developers Guildmore’s website):<\/p>\nPoplar Baths\u00a0originally opened in\u00a01852, costing \u00a310,000. Built to provide public wash facilities for the East End\u2019s poor as a result of the Baths and Washhouses Act 1846. The \u2018slipper baths\u2019 section originally contained six baths for women in each division, 12 in the men\u2019s first-class section and 24 in the second-class. The steam and shower bath areas were behind the slipper baths and the laundry was at the rear of the building, on Arthur Street. The laundry contained 48 separate wooden washing tubs, drying equipment, ironing rooms and the uncovered water tank, erected over the boiler house, had a capacity of 24,000 gallons.<\/p>\n
Rebuilt in 1933, the larger pool was floored over, designated the East India Hall and converted to a theatre with a seating capacity of 1,400, with a dance hall, cinema, exhibition room and sports hall, for boxing and wrestling programmes. This kept the hall active in the winter months, while the smaller pool remained in use.<\/p>\n
At the end of the war, from 1938 until 1941, the office was used by the staff of the Borough\u2019s electricity office, and then later occupied by the Transport and General Workers Union and the Poplar Labour Party. Wartime bomb damage forced the closure of the main bath hall, which remained unglazed for several years. Poplar Baths reopened in 1947 and continued to be used as a swimming facility until 1988, when it was turned into an industrial training centre. Between 1954 and 1959, the baths were used by an average of 225,700 bathers each year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Poplar Baths have been restored and refurbished and are now open.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.fcara.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/07\/poplar-baths.jpg?fit=1296%2C968&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4GT9s-gS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1046"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1048,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1046\/revisions\/1048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fcara.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}