The birth of the Melbourne bath

When guests of Melbourne are interested in the sights of the city, residents primarily call … local baths. “Of course, these are not the famous Roman baths, where the fate of the ancient world was often decided, but on the scale of our country their footprint is very noticeable,” they say. “Although the history of our baths is not so long – only a century and a half.”

The first line in the Australian “bathhouse chronicle” entered the 200-ton Swedish brig “Nancy”, stranded near the Melbourne coast near Fitzroy Street. The place was called Green Hill, but immigrants from Europe, who mastered the new continent, dubbed it a bathhouse. It is here, as historical chronicles testify, that the builders of the young city hurried in special trailers in order to have a rest by the sea after a busy day, to wash off dust and dirt. In the cabins, they changed clothes and through the hole-hole in the stern entered the water, on the allocated “washing area”. Continue reading →