swimming spots across the
country. When Archibald
Sinclair commented in 1885
that ‘open-water bathing has
not been encouraged so much
. . . as it ought to be’, he
attributed this to the Baths
and Washhouses Act that
gave people indoor places to
bathe, just as in the 1960s and
1970s when another surge in
the construction of public
indoor baths helped to drive
us away from the river. But to