Swimming has always been a popular pastime. Up until the late 1880s, however, the only place for anyone in Merthyr to enjoy a swim was in one of the many ponds dotted around the town. These were often dirty and un-hygienic and people would quite often find themselves swimming with goodness knows what.
In 1889, John Vaughan, a local solicitor, secured a piece of land in Gwaunfarren, and opened an open-air swimming pool there. Fed by a channel off the neighbouring weir, and with wooden decking along the pool’s edge, the new pool provided a safe venue for swimming set into the hillside amidst sheltering trees and bushes.
In February of the following year, John Vaughan set up a limited company, ‘The Merthyr and Dowlais Swimming Bath Company Ltd’, to formalise the formation of the new bathing facility. The company was registered with a capital of £800 in £1 shares, “to obtain a lease from Colonel Morgan of the swimming bath at Gwaunfarren, Merthyr Tydfil, for 60 years, at a rent of a peppercorn, when demanded, for the first 21 years, and £3 per annum for the remaining period”.
With this secured, John Vaughan embarked on developing a more permanent site with relevant facilities, and the new Swimming Baths were built by a local builder, Mr Matthew Warlow at a cost of £1,600, and were opened in 1891.
From the outset, the new baths were a success. A swimming club was started and competitions and swimming galas were held regularly at the baths.
One of the regular visitors to the baths, and one of its greatest patrons was David Alfred Thomas (Lord Rhondda), the Welsh industrialist and M.P. for Merthyr between 1888 and 1910. In 1915, Thomas was aboard the RMS Lusitania when it was sunk by German torpedoes, and a number of accounts say that he cited the years spent swimming at Gwaunfarren as a contributory factor in helping save himself from the disaster.
The impact of the First World War was catastrophic on the open-air baths and through a mixture of declining use, neglect of the fixtures and fittings, and even pilfering of parts of the wooden structure, the baths were closed.
Following the war, Henry Seymour Berry, Merthyr’s great benefactor, realising the Merthyr no longer had adequate swimming facilities, paid for a new, indoor facility to be built on the site of the old baths, and subsequently made a gift of the new baths to Merthyr County Borough Council.
The new building, which was built at a cost of over £8,000, was officially opened in a grand ceremony on 3 July 1924.
The baths were refurbished again at a cost of £67,000 in 1979-1980, and they remained open until 2007. The building was subsequently demolished.