Talk:Swindon Victorian Turkish Baths

The Victorian Turkish baths at Swindon, the oldest continually running Turkish baths in the UK (and probably in the world) are the only Turkish baths which do not have a page on Wikipedia.

In order that this this historically important bath (still open, though currently closed for refurbishment) does not remain the only bath still open not to have a page of its own, I am uploading a temporary mini-page until it re-opens—or earlier if someone else wishes to edit and enlarge it.

Further images will be added as soon as Wiki Commons decides on an appropriate category for them.

I have not added a category as the only ones I can think of are 'Victorian Turkish baths' 'Hot-air baths' 'bathing' and 'Swindon' (in that order) and none seems to exist. If I knew how, I would have 'Hot-air baths' as parent, with 'Victorian Turkish baths' 'Hammam' 'sauna' 'sento', etc as categories. But I have no idea how to set this in motion.

Comments and suggestions welcome.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ishpoloni (talk • contribs) 19:39, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ishpoloni. I've added the article to a couple of categories. I think it would also benefit from being added to a couple of relevant Wikiprojects. Could you expand to explain what Health Hydro is? Bastun^{Ėġáḍβáś₮ŭŃ!} 21:22, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

In the 19th century a [health] hydropathic establishment provided hydropathic treatments. Much of this later developed into modern hydrotherapy. This is not one of my areas of expertise, but the wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrotherapy seems exceptionally good.

That may not be quite what you asked, but in the 21st century terms such as health hydros, health spas, day spas, wellbeing spas, and countless others, are all terms dreamt up by advertisers wishing to sell their brand of treatment, nowadays frequently including very expensive beauty treatments.

As a long retired librarian with much classification experience, my initial reaction would be a parent category 'Baths and bathing' leading to, eg, hot-air baths, which leads to such as Hammam, Sento, sauna, banya, Victorian Turkish baths, etc. The Victorian Turkish bath is a very specifically defined entity. The generally misused 'Turkish baths' will definitely not do, neither is it an American style 'Bath house' (often implying gay sauna), nor is is a Public Bath (in the generally accepted understanding of the term, ie, baths and swimming pools).

Hope this helps a little.Ishpoloni (talk) 21:55, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

Progress report

This page no longer relies on a single source and I hope that this banner can now be removed from the page. It has been compiled in a relatively short time so it may well contain errors which need to be corrected. There will also be gaps as it is difficult for a newbie to determine how much should be include without the page becoming unwieldly. I will therefore be grateful for any comments on any aspect of the page with a view to improving it in due course. Ishpoloni (talk) 18:39, 16 February 2024 (UTC)