3-008-717 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Turkish baths in Jermyn-street, [London]: the hararah, or hot-chamber, 1862. '...from the designs and under the professional superintendence of Mr. J. Somers Clarke...The hararah is the first hot-room paved with Sicilian marble, and is in the form of a Greek cross, each of the arms forming an arched recess, or leewan...In the centre is a marble mastabah of increased height, approached by steps. It is covered entirely with Italian marble, and by its extra height a douche-room is obtained beneath it. The whole of the hararah floor is laid hollow, so as to allow of a free current of warm air beneath. The warm air enters the bath through open spaces beneath the mastabahs, or raised platforms, in the leewans...the central portion...is covered with a dome pierced at intervals by nine sexfoil and etoile shaped openings filled with coloured glass in geometric patterns...Moorish-shaped arches of a horseshoe form front the leewans...The hot-rooms are illuminated externally by gas through the dome lights. By this contrivance some of the effect of the coloured glass is retained as in the daytime, whilst the chambers themselves are kept pure and free from the noxious fumes produced by the combustion of gas after dark'. From "Illustrated London News", 1862.