ClacksWeb - Clackmannanshire Council Online

There are a lot of dragons in the Speirs Centre in Alloa. Fortunately, they are not mobile, as most of them are attached to the horizontal beams supporting the roof trusses over the former swimming pool and gymnasium.

These dragons are fierce-looking beasts with gaping jaws and there are five pairs in each room. At first glance they all look the same, there are in fact quite a few variations in their design. In the former swimming pool, now the gym, all but one pair have front legs tucked in behind their heads; three pairs also have horns on the top of their snouts and bare their fangs.

The Museum is located at present on the first floor of the Speirs Centre and in the store room, which was once the gymnasium, the dragons have no legs but quite elaborate curling scales along their backs. They all have wings, were once painted a different colour; now they are painted white all over, apart from their red jaws.

Smaller dragon heads decorate the balconies on either side of the gym and there are also other sinuous beasts curling themselves around the wooden balustrade on the main staircases leading up to the Museum and first floor, each one with a slightly different expression on its face. All of the dragons have been skilfully hand carved in wood.

The Speirs Centre was built as Alloa Public Baths and Gymnasium from 1895-98 and was presented to the town by John Thomson Paton of Norwood for the benefit of the townspeople, many of whom would have had little access to running water and baths. It was designed by the architects Burnet and Campbell. The exterior is typically Scots Renaissance in style, but inside the carved wooden dragons and other decorative features show a strong Oriental and Moorish influence. The Turkish bath suite has now gone, the interior has been partly altered, with most of the tiling overpainted, but the building is still splendid.

People who learned to swim in the former baths may well remember these fierce creatures in this, one of the important civic buildings of late Victorian Alloa.

For more information about the baths and Victorian Turkish Baths in general visit the excellent Victorian Turkish Bath site.